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Good Mythical Friday Evening Everyone!

We welcome our newest members and move to 3rd edition of TheFridayEveningReport — An authority report on the latest startup funding trends happening all over India. Yes, we cover just India. Why?

Here’s some freakonomics — India May Cross $1 Tn Digital Transactions By 2025; 80% Transactions Would Be Digital!

While the jury is still out on whether the government’s recent demonetisation gambit managed to clean up black money from the system, there is no denying that it has had a profound impact on another class of currency — digital money.

And,fun fact- Most Indians love PayTM over GoogleTej/ApplePay or other wallets. Flipkart over Amazon.

There are wallets. Digital lenders. Insurance startups. Payment banks. And few of them are hungry for chicken because they crave data instead.

Poor banks. It’s hard not to feel sorry for them. Esp, after the AADHAR fiasco! Having competed only with each other for decades, they’re now getting pinched, poked and tickled by dozens of smaller competitors — the fintech startups.

All the below deals took place just in a span of 1 week [since 19 March 2018], and we are putting you an issue to help you track the best reasons each sector is making beeline of progress. For the previous funding deals, we keep a tracker, and watch like a hawk! Read the blog…

Coming back to the trends today, we saw a lot of traction happening the world of fundings….

/… First the baby bloomers.. (Seed/AngelFunding)

… Zappfresh, Online Raw Meat E-tailer based in Gurugram got Seed Funded from Amit Burman, SIDBI Venture Capital approx INR 19.5 crores.

… Karma Healthcare, Technology enabled equitable healthcare for India based in Udaipur got a Angel funding of $500k from 1Crowd, Ankur Capital

… Another Gurugram based Startup called “CustomerSucessBox” Customer Success Software for B2B SaaS got funded INR 6.5 crores.

… Pune based GigIndia, which provides Micro Jobs Provider For Students got a “seeded” by a beeline of Chinese Investors (Jessica Wong, Hiro Mashita, Xue Manzi and Yiyun Zhang.)

… One Labs, Consumer Technology and Artificial Intelligence Based Aggregator App got PE (private equity) deal from Micromax Informatics Ltd.

… Fingerlix, Ready To cook Food Solution got Debt funding of INR 8.52 crores from Alteria Capital.

… Chennai based Chargebee, a Subscription Billing & Recurring Payments Software hit a PE deal worth 117.1 INR crores with Insight Venture Partners, Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management.

.. KKR-backed investment platform, Emerald Media, has led $80 Mn in Singapore and Chennai-based sports tech company GSC (Global Sports Commerce)

… If anyone’s into e-commerce digg this: FACT — Flipkart Burnt Through Nearly Half Of $6.1 Bn It Raised From Investors In The Last 10 Years!

… Customer Engagement Company ZineOne Raises $2.5 Mn Funding From Omidyar Network. This is a serious business. “…. engagement efforts beyond emails and call centres into an immediate, contextual and real-time world.” Very few startups in this sector!

…. Shorebird Technologies, the makers of the third generation, end-to-end corporate travel management platform Tripeur, has raised $600K in Pre-Series A funding led by Japan-based Incubate Fund and a few angel investors.

And, in another news… Startup Weekend Bangalore — AI and IoT edition was a great success. More on the event will be posted on this blog. There’s a lot going on at B’lore.. And, we will post the pitches soon.

Here’s a story I would like to write before we break for the day….

…… Once upon a time, due to drought, there was less and less food available for frogs. A visiting frog took pity on them, and said “There’s a tower nearby and on top of it, you will find all the food you want.” Many frogs hopped towards the tower, and tried reaching the top. The news spread fast. Many animals gathered around and took a deep pity for these frogs trying to scale a tower. A few called them crazy. And, one by one, each frog fell down discouraged by other animal’s critique. After a brief amount of time, one frog reached the top. The tower was a big lighthouse. And, all it took was that one lone nut to believe he could be the CHANGE.

“………. When The World Discourages You , Go DEAF”

We want everyone to write back! .. Let’s talk startups. Write back, voice your opinion. Here’s hoping this is not a dead wall. Happy Weekend folks!

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