[Weekly funding roundup] Venture investments cross $1B in March 2nd week; BYJU’s raises $800M

The second week of March witnessed increased funding activity in the Indian startup ecosystem after a lull over the last two weeks due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Venture funding into Indian startups touched $1.36 billion in the second week of March, primarily on the back of the $800 million capital infusion into edtech major BYJU’s, now valued at $22 billion.

This provided a big boost to the startup ecosystem after it saw a dismal performance in the first week of March, which reported total funding of $196 million into Indian startups.

The week also saw 24 deals in the growth stage category, dominating overall investments. In fact, the Indian startup ecosystem also welcomed CredAvenue into the unicorn club.

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Edtech decacorn BYJU’s raised $800 million from Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, and BlackRock, which included a personal investment of $400 million from Founder Byju Raveendran.

Fintech startup CredAvenue raised $137 million from Insight Partners, B Capital Group, and Dragoneer Investment Group at a valuation of $1.3 billion.

Fintech startup Money View raised $75 million from Tiger Global, Winter Capital, Evolvence India, Accel, South Park Commons, and others.

Tech startup Perfios Software raised $68 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and Warburg Pincus.

Captain Fresh, the meat and fish marketplace, raised $50 million from Prosus Ventures, Tiger Global, Accel India, Matrix Partners India, and others.

Game streaming platform Loco raised $42 million from Hashed, Makers Fund, Catamaran Ventures, and Korea Investment Partners.

Agritech startup Otipy raised $32 million from Westbridge Capital, SIG, and Omidyar Network India.

Video infrastructure startup 100ms raised $20 million from Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI), Matrix Partners India, and LocalGlobe.

Audio content platform KukuFM raised $19.5 million from KRAFTON, 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures, India Quotient, and others.

D2C brand CureSkin raised $5 million from JSW Ventures, Sharrp Ventures, SenseAI, and other existing investors.

Fintech startup CredoPay raised $5 million from EzSwype LLC and Zent International Limited.

Info Edge acquired a 76 percent stake in dating platform Aisle for Rs 91 crore.