1. Sminq is in talks with PE investors to raise $8-10 Mn funding to scale its newly built app that lets users share real-time information with others from verified locations around the world. Sminq was founded in 2015 by Shachin Bharadwaj, Sheldon Dsouza and @Santhosh N

2. One97 Communications with its brand Paytm has continued to diversify its bets as it invested $16 Mn along with AGTech in the Joint Venture of the duo— Gamepind, a mobile gaming offering. Gamepind plans to use the funding to expand its operations. Launched in January 2018 by the duo, Gamepind has been available on Paytm app as well as independently too.

3. PhonePe raises Rs 452 Cr from Flipkart – Expanding to Tier II and III geographies is a huge focus for PhonePe at present, and a majority of the funds raised is likely to go into expanding its footprint.

4. Bengaluru-based scooter rental startup Vogo Automotive has raised $6-7 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Ola’s parent company ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd and Hero MotoCorp chairman Pawan Munjal. Founded in 2016 by Anand Ayyadurai, Padmanabhan Balakrishnan and Sanchit Mittal, Vogo offers commuters round-the-clock scooter rental service, intended to serve as a cost-effective alternative to the more popular cabs and autos.

5. Former Sequoia Capital MDs To Launch A $291 Mn Fund To Invest In Series B Startups – The investment company is being named as A91 Partners & will be investing in emerging companies across sectors such as consumer, healthcare, financial services, and technology.

6. Chennai-based ruralecommerce startup Inthree has raised $4 mn in a Series A funding round led by Ventureast, with participation from Orios Venture Partners and the IAN Fund. Founded in 2013 by Ramachandran Ramanathan, Karthik Natarajan, and Narayanan, Inthree operates under the brand name Boonbox and has an omnichannel business model.

7. Softbank May Help OYO Catapult Valuation To $4 Bn In Next Round Of $1 Bn Funding – The funding is expected to be between $500 Mn and $1 Bn, depending on which the valuation may vary between $4.5 Bn-$5 Bn.

8. Nazara’s Next Bet Is On Offline VR Gaming With Investment In InstaSportz. Founded in 2016 by Bigith Nambiar and KR Rahul, Instasportz offers offline VR gaming through their state-of-the-art VR gaming kiosks called Instazones.

9. Hotstar Parent Gets $73.8 Mn To Up Its Game Against Netflix, Prime Video And Others – Hotstar has about seven lakh paid subscribers as of July.

10. Voice AI platform Observe.AI has secured $8 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners to further improve its platform services for its clients worldwide. Founded in May 2017 by Akash Singh, Sharath Keshava, and Swapnil Jain, the Bengaluru and US-based Observe.AI empowers call centre agents to do their jobs better by providing real-time feedback on customer sentiment and guides them on next best action during the customer call.

11. Yuvraj Singh backed restaurant table reservation startup EazyDiner has raised $5.85 Mn (INR 41 Cr) in Series B funding led by Denlow Investment Trust and early-stage investment firm Beenext. Founded in 2015 by Vir Sanghvi and other top hoteliers, EazyDiner is a restaurant table reservation platform.

12. Bengaluru-based food and beverage startup &ME has raised a fresh funding from Matrix Partners India. The startup plans to utilise the proceeds towards further researches and development on new formulations. The development was confirmed by &ME founder Ankur Goyal, to Inc42 in an email interaction earlier today.

 

 

 

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