[Weekly funding roundup] As the country braced itself for the Interim Budget, deals came to a screeching halt

This week, an assortment of startups from cloud to fintech, healthtech, e-commerce, edtech and media raised funding - but only about $46 million.

It was a week when stakeholders of the Indian startup ecosystem waited with bated breath for the country’s Finance Minister to unveil the Interim Budget. And deal-making activities took a backseat.

Funding in the last week of January slowed down to only over $46 million spread across 16 deals. While there were 14 early-stage deals that amounted to $45.6 million, there were no late stage deals. The remaining amount was cornered by debt and other funding.

Deal of the week: Cloud security and data privacy startup, Fortanix Inc raised $23 million in its Series B round led by Intel Capital. Existing investors Foundation Capital and Neotribe also participated. Following the funding, Sunil Kurkure, Director of Intel Capital, will be joining the company’s board.

A quick look at key early-stage funding deals

Animal pharmaceuticals company Ashish Life Science raised $6.3 million (Rs 45 crore) in its first external round led by Eight Roads Ventures, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International Ltd. Other participants included Anterra Capital, a Netherlands-based food and agriculture-focussed specialist fund.

Bengaluru-based digital media platform The Better India raised $3.5 million (Rs 25 crore) in its Series A round. Led by venture capital firm Elevar Equity, the round saw participation from the Rise Fund managed by TPG Growth.

Fintech platform CreditVidya raised funding of $3 million in a round led by Bharat Innovation Fund with participation from the founding members of Falcon Edge Capital - Ryan Khoury, Navroz D.Udwadia and Rick Gerson. The Munbai-based startup plans to use the funds to expand its credit underwriting services to companies in various sectors looking to extend credit facilities to customers.

InfiniChains raised $2.4 million (Rs 17 crore) in its Series A funding from Ajanta Pharma’s Founder Purushottam Agrawal. The San Francisco- and Pune-based blockchain startup will use these funds to invest in marketing and expand to the US and Europe.

Shortlist raised $2 million (Rs 14.2 crore) in its Series A funding round led by Blue Haven Ventures. The round also saw participation from Zephyr Acorn, Compass Venture Capital, among others. The Mumbai-based talent vetting startup plans to expand outreach to job seekers, improve its algorithmic matching, and expand geographically.

Bengaluru based AptEner Mechatronics, the parent company of multi-functional motorcycle gear brand BluArmor, raised $1.4 million (Rs 10 crore) in its Series A funding. The round was led by Inventus India and KITVEN.

InsurTech startup Kruzr raised $1.3 million (Rs 9.5 crore) seed funding. Kruzr, which basically is a plug and play solution for preventive motor insurance, secured funds from Saama Capital and Better Capital.

Other deals, exits and acquisitions

Sachin Bansal, co-founder and former Executive Chairman of Flipkart, invested $7 million in his recent venture BAC Acquisitions. According to Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings, the company has allotted 50 lakh equity shares to him for Rs 50 crore.

Indonesian bike taxi service Go-Jek will raise its Series F round of $2 billion at a valuation of $9.5 billion. The first close is reported to be at $920 million and was led by Google, Tencent and JD.com. The round is reported to see participation from Provident Capital and Mitsubishi Corporation as well.

Paytm acquired hotel booking app NightStay for Rs 142 crore. The app allows travellers to book hotels instantly while assuring high-quality service. The acquisition will help the payments giant to re-enter the hotel aggregation business and expand its travel operations by offering last minute deals to the tourists.

Bengaluru-based Medlife International acquiring Mumbai-based Medlabz, a digital healthcare platform and a ‘diagnostics at home’ services company, for an undisclosed amount.