A look at this week's startup deals: Apptile, Verak, InsuranceDekho, Zyod, Dozer, PhonePe, were in news

Startup space remained action-packed this week with a slew of firms raising funds while a few others starting potential acquisitions and merger talks. VC funds like Iron Pillar closed its late stage fund for SaaS startups and consumer giant Godrej Consumer Products Limited launched a Rs 300 crore early-stage consumer fund. Meanwhile, edtech giant Byju's has appointed Vedanta Group's executive Ajay Goel as its CFO.

ZeeBiz.com has curated a list of top deals this week featuring Apptile, Verak, InsuranceDekho, Zyod, Dozer, PhonePe, Narrato, Lawyered, ixamBee, CometChat among others.

SaaS startup Apptile gets $2.5M funding

Bangalore-based Software as a Service (SaaS) startup Apptile has received $2.5 million funding in a seed round, according to a statement. Mankekar Family Office and Ramakant Sharma, founder at Livspace.com led the seed round.

Apptile was started in 2021 by Rohit Modi, Samyam Annappa, and Vishal Sood. The startup offers customisable and hyper-personalized app-building capabilities that were previously only available to large brands.

InsuranceDekho acquires SME insurance platform Verak

CarDekho’s insurance arm InsuranceDekho has acqui-hired Verak, a Mumbai-based SME insurance distribution company, Ankit Agrawal, founder and CEO of InsuranceDekho shared the development on LinkedIn.

This comes just after a couple of months when InsuranceDekho raised $150 million in a Series A round led by investors like TVS Capital Funds and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Prozeal Infra, Narrato, Lawyered, ixamBee receive funding

Solar EPC company Prozeal Infra, AI content marketing platform Narrato, consumer-focused legal-tech platform Lawyered, and online learning platform ixamBee have raised funding from their respective investors.

B2B apparel startup Zyod, tech startup Dozer raise funding

Business-to-business (B2B) apparel sourcing and manufacturing startup Zyod has received $3.5 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. FJ Labs, Panthera Peak Capital, and angel investors like Ravi Khandelwal, Abhishek Goyal, Abhinav Sinha, and Gaurav Hinduja also participated in the round.

Iron Pillar closes $129 million late stage fund to back SaaS startup

Venture capital firm Iron Pillar has announced a $129-million late-stage fund to invest in Series B and Series C rounds in SaaS startups that are operating in India. The fund is a part of ‘Iron Pillar Fund II series’ of funds.  

Iron Pillar Fund II series will focus on startups that are transforming the cloud ecosystem globally. It has attracted new investors as well as existing investors along with two Endowments and a Foundation.

Phonepe launches shopping app Pincode on ONDC network

Walmart-owned digital payments app Phonepe has launched a new shopping app called 'Pincode' built on top of the ONDC platform, according to a company's statement. Pincode is currently live only for Bangalore-based customers.

The app will focus on hyperlocal commerce and is now available for download on Google Play Store and App Store, the company said on Tuesday, 4 April 2023.

Edtech startup Byju's ropes in Vedanta executive Ajay Goel as CFO

Edtech firm Byju's has roped in Vedanta Group's Ajay Goel as its chief financial officer (CFO). This comes after more than a year since decacorn's previous CFO resigned.

PV Rao, the previous CFO of Byju's left the company in December 2021. The new CFO Goel joined from Vedanta where he was the Group Deputy CFO of Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Resources. Before Vedanta, Goel worked with the companies like Diageo, GE (General Electric), Coca-Cola, and Nestle.

CometChat secures Rs 40 crore in venture debt

ve chat platform CometChat has secured Rs 40 crore in venture debt funding, the company said in a statement. The round was led by Utah-based Zions Venture Fund.

Technology-led NBFC Avanti Finance raises $24M in Series B round

Technology-led non-bank finance company (NBFC) Avanti Finance Private Limited has received $24 million in a Series B round of funding from a couple of investors along with existing investors.

Japan's MUFG Bank leads $400 million round in DMI Finance

DMI Finance Private Limited, a New Delhi-based non-banking financing company (NBFC), has raised a $400 million equity investment led by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc through its consolidated subsidiary MUFG Bank, according to a statement.

Existing investors Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Limited also took part in the round which includes primary and secondary transactions, the company informed on Monday, 3 April 2023.

Professional networking startup Blue Circle raises fresh round of funding

Professional networking startup Blue Circle on Monday said it has raised a fresh round of funding from leading CXOs from private equity, tech, healthcare and legal sectors. The Gurugram-based startup has raised more than USD 500,000 through 2 rounds of angel funding so far and is planning a pre-series A round in next few months, a statement said.

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