Dubai’s ride-hailing app Careem Monday said it has acquired Hyderabad-based bus-shuttle service app Commut for an undisclosed amount. Commut was set up in 2015 by six IIIT-Hyderabad graduates and is operational in the city. Backed by Shell-Foundation and 50K Ventures, Commut has served over 70,000 customers and onboarded 400 driver-partners. It has made over 7.5 lakh trips in over 100 existing routes.
“we are always looking to invest in new technologies and high-calibre people to help solve complex local problems. And mass transportation is one of the biggest issues facing cities in the Greater Middle East,” Careem said in a blogpost. It added that improving the quality and availability of mass transportation will help to create affordable transport options.
While Careem is taking over Commut’s talent and technology, the latter’s customers and drivers will become part of another shuttle service provider, Shuttl, the statement said.
Bengaluru based fintech firm OBOPAY on Monday announced that it had acquired Mubble, a consumer technology company.
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The acquisition is aimed towards enhancing OBOPAY’s data analytics capabilities and mobile app expertise, said the firm in a media release. Post the acquisition, Ashwin Ramaswamy, co-founder and CEO of Mubble, will be joining OBOPAY.
Shailendra Naidu, CEO, OBOPAY, said, “The strategic acquisition of Mubble is a significant step in strengthening OBOPAY’s service offerings in Indian and international markets. Together with OBOPAY’s technical edge and Mubble’s value additions in consumer class applications, we would create products and solutions that will bring about measurable and sustainable difference to our customers. The recommendation algorithms and data analytics capabilities of Mubble will significantly boost our services in all the markets where we operate.”
South African internet conglomerate Naspers LLC is in talks to invest in ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which owns ride hailing company Ola, at a valuation of $7-8 billion, said three people familiar with the development. Besides Naspers, Ola is also in talks with Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pvt. Ltd and two other funds to raise $1 billion in fresh capital, the people cited above said, requesting anonymity.
Ola, which is currently valued at about $4 billion, may see its valuation double after the proposed funding round, they said, adding the talks haven’t reached the final stages. Last October, Ola had raised $1.1 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd, among others. It had announced back then that it would raise $1 billion more.
Mumbai-based venture capital firm Unicorn India Ventures announced on Monday that private-sector lender Federal Bank will be the anchor limited partner (LP) for its Rs 600 crore (around $83 million) venture debt fund. It is not clear how much the Kerala-headquartered bank will invest.
The early-stage investment firm’s maiden venture debt fund, which was launched last November, is expecting to announce its first close this quarter. The fund will look to invest in up to 12 startups a year, likely starting from the third quarter of the current financial year. When the fund was first launched, Unicorn India Ventures had said the average ticket size would be around Rs 20 crore.
Two former Reliance Industries employees who were part of its GenNext Innovation Hub have set up Cornerstone Venture Partners Fund, an early-growth stage technology venture fund. Rajiv Vaishnav and Abhishek Prasad recently received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for the fund and are now in the process of raising their first fund.
“The first fund will be a ₹300-400 crore ($40-60m) fund and we are targeting a first close of ₹100 crore,” Rajiv Vaishnav, managing Partner, Cornerstone, told .
The core team of General Partners has been put in place, which has Ganesh Natarajan, chairman 5F World, Ashith Kampani, chairman, CosmicMandala15 Group, Roshan Talera, executive director, Talera Group, Hemant Kank, MD, Yeshashree Group and Vijay Srirangan, director general, Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
Fintech-cum-education start-up Kredent Infoedge has received pre-series A angel funding of Rs 5 crore from stock market investor Ramesh Damani, the first funds received from an external source.
Managing Director of the Kolkata-based company, Vivek Bajaj, said it is focusing on stock market education and equity market data analytics.
The funds received would be utilised for developing new and innovative products, Bajaj said. “Our mission is to spread financial literacy among the people of the country,” he said.
IIFL Wealth Management Ltd, a unit of financial services company IIFL Holdings, has announced in a stock-exchange filing that it has agreed to buy Bengaluru-based fintech firm Altiore Capital for Rs 9.2 crore (around $1.2 million at current exchange rates).
Altiore Capital, run by Altiore Advisors Pvt. Ltd, was launched in October 2016 by Vivek Banka. Before that, Banka was an IIFL Wealth Management employee for six years.
According to its website, Altiore integrates technology, data and advice into an online platform that allows users to effectively and efficiently manage their net worth by providing data across asset classes. The company had rolled out its flagship product in February last year and had not raised any external funding.
The wealth management arm of IIFL (formerly India Infoline) was launched in 2008. The firm was largely known for wealth management services, besides real estate-focussed private equity funds and hedge funds. However, it has been slowly building up its alternative investment practice. Over the past year, it has focussed on raising a large corpus for pre-IPO investments. IIFL Wealth also has a seed fund.
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