Deal book: Wildcraft, Byju’s, Vokal and others

India’s Silicon Valley buzzed with energy this week as Bengaluru’s outdoor gear maker Wildcraft raised funding followed by education-technology company Byju’s acquisition of math-learning platform Math Adventures and a slew of fund raise by start-ups, keeping pace with the city’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Early this week, Mauritius-based private equity firm FidelisWorld invested an undisclosed amount in Wildcraft. Started from a Bengaluru garage 25 years ago, Wildcraft, an outdoor gear, apparel, and footwear brand, now sells products in 175 exclusive stores and in over 5,000 multi-brand stores across 500 Indian cities. With the recent investment, FidelisWorld would leverage its global network to boost Wildcraft’s business in India and the overseas markets.

In 2013, Wildcraft had raised $11 million from Sequoia Capital and earlier this year, online fashion retailer Myntra, and its parent Flipkart, had picked up a minority stake in Wildcraft for an undisclosed amount. Wildcraft, which was founded by Siddharth Sood, Gaurav Dublish, and Dinesh Kaigonahalli, currently distributes its products in South Asia, West Asia, and Central Asia.

Later in the week, Byju’s—India’s largest education-technology company—acquired Bengaluru-based Math Adventures for an undisclosed amount to help develop its preschool learning programmes. Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO of Byju’s, a mechanical engineer by training, launched his learning app in 2015 offering study material for school students and competitive exam candidates. Byju’s popular personalised mobile-learning app uses original content, engaging video lessons, and interactive activities to personalise learning for each student. One of the top 10 most-funded online education startups globally, Byju’s aims to cross Rs 1,400 crore in revenue this year. At present, the startup has 22 million registered users and 1.4 million annual paid subscribers.

Over the past decade, Bengaluru has built a buzzing ecosystem of startups, angel investors and venture capitalists, who have consistently contributed to the growing entrepreneurial culture of the city.

Towards the end of the week, voice-based vernacular knowledge sharing platform, Vokal, raised $5 million in its series A funding round, led by a new investor Shunwei Capital, along with early-stage venture capital fund 500 Startups. Existing investors Blume Ventures and Accel India also participated in the round. Founded in 2017 by Aprameya Radhakrishna (co-founder, TaxiForSure, which was acquired by Ola in 2015) and Mayank Bidawatka (one of the core team members at redBus, which was acquired by Ibibo Group in 2013.), Bengaluru-based Vokal is targeted towards non-English speaking Internet users in India as a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing platform.

Among the new generation of tech startups, mobile-first video blogging platform Trell raised $1.25 million from multiple investors during the week. The platform allows users to share travel and local content via images and short videos. The seed round was led by Beenext and seed-stage VC firm WEH Ventures. Rajan Anandan, managing director, Google India, Anupam Mittal, founder-CEO at People Group and an early investor in Ola, and Sprout Venture Partners, an early-and-seed stage VC firm were among the other investors in the startup.

Among other deals, Bengaluru-based tech startup Bitla Software managed to woo India’s largest online travel company MakeMyTrip to invest an undisclosed amount in the venture. The company provides travel management software and technology solutions (cloud and mobile-based) to clients such as online ticketing portals, hotels, cargo and logistics companies and tour operators.

Watch this space to know more next week.