Good morning! Below are some of the top tech startup news stories for Monday, May 6.
Grocery startup BigBasket bags $150 million to become India’s latest unicorn. India based online grocery shopping and online supermarket has raised $150 million funding from a group of investors led by South Korea-based Mirae-Naver and China’sAlibaba Group. Bigbasket, which was founded in 2011 by Abhinay Choudhari, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, and VS Sudhakar, sells everything from groceries and fresh produce to pet food. The startup also competes with Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc’s e-commerce unit Flipkart in many categories. BigBasket has raised a total of $1 billion in funding over 14 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 6, 2019 from a Series G round.
FIS selected 10 startups for its fourth Fintech Accelerator Program. Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), a global financial technology giant that provides software for payment processing and other services mostly to banks, has selected ten technology startups to participate in its fourth annual FIS Fintech Accelerator program. The program is run in collaboration with Venture Center. Executives from FIS and The Venture Center as well as community leaders were in attendance to meet this year’s participants at the kickoff event held yesterday at The Venture Center. The 2019 program received 225 applications from fintech companies across the U.S. and 31 other countries.
Mobile wellness startup Noom secures $58 million in funding to expand its team. Noom, a New York City-based mobile wellness company, completed a $58m financing to expand the team and improve the customer experience. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Groupe Arnault’s tech arm Aglaé Ventures, Samsung Ventures, and others. Co-founded by CEO Saeju Jeong and President of Product and Engineering Artem Petakov, Noom provides clinically-proven behavior change programs that combine human coaches with personalized content to allow people to achieve their wellness goals. Users complete a questionnaire, download the app and are paired with a dedicated health coach and customized content that dynamically evolves based on their needs.
ClearCourse acquires data provider startup Crafty Clicks. ClearCourse Partnership LLP, a London, UK-based group of innovative technology companies providing software, acquired Crafty Clicks, a data provider and address validation platform startup for an undisclosed amount. ClearCourse provides services and digital capabilities to the membership, events & bookings and sports & leisure sectors. Founded in 2008 and led by Adam Stylo, Managing Director, Crafty Clicks provides clients’ websites, ERP, CRM and POS systems with full-service integration of its address validation service through its application programming interface (API). It now offers clients international address data spanning over 240 countries and regions. The company services thousands of clients including many internationally recognized brands such as Royal Bank of Scotland, B&Q and Robert Dyas.
German startup Ciara launches with seven-figure investment to provide virtual assistant for inside sales reps. Ciara, the Munich, Germany based virtual assistant startup, today announced its public launch a seven-figure investment. Backers include lead investor UVC Partners, Interhyp founders Marcus Wolsdorf and Rober Haselsteiner, as well as the successful entrepreneurs Christian Mangstl (Scout 24) and Felix Haas (Bits & Pretzels, IDnow). Similar to the assistants in the consumer market such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, Ciara helps sales representatives effectively conduct phone conversations without struggling to find the right answers or lose the thread. Ciara is a virtual assistant for inside sales professionals and teams.
E-bike startup Bond Mobility raises $20 million Series A from DENSO. Dock-less eBike sharing startup, Bond Mobility, has raised $20 million from DENSO, the world’s second largest mobility supplier. The Investment will help DENSO accelerate development of Mobility as a Service technologies and systems while protecting the environment. Founded in 2017 by Corinne Vogel, Horace Dediu, Kirt McMaster, Nick Mueller, Raoul Stockle, Bond is the world’s only speed eBike sharing company that delivers high-performance micromobility services. Bond is a car, rideshare or public transit replacement. The company is built not only for urban environments but its faster speed and longer journey average makes it the only suburban micromobility service that works.
