ETtech Deals Digest: Indian startups pickup funding in festival season investment spree, despite a two-year low

India’s biggest edtech startup Byju’s kicked off the week with a massive $250 million in a funding round led by Qatar’s sovereign investment arm QIA, at its previous valuation of $22 billion. Electric scooter maker Ather Energy picked up $50 million, while B2B construction material supplier Globalfair raised $20 million. Here is a list of companies that raised money last week.

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Byju’s raises $250 million, eyes another $500 million: The Qatar Investment Authority invested $100 million in Byju’s, in a funding round that saw the
edtech unicorn raise $250 million. The company also raised money from existing investors Sequoia and Tiger Capital, sources told ET. Byju’s is eyeing to raise another $500 million through convertible notes, people familiar with the matter told ET.

Ather Energy picks up $50 million from existing investors: Ather Energy, looking to ramp up its electric scooter production,
raised $50 million from Caladium Investment, in a round that also saw participation from Herald Square Ventures. The EV-maker had raised $128 million in May, led by India’s sovereign wealth fund NIIF and Hero MotoCorp.

Blockchain startup Shardeum raises $18.2 million: Shardeum,
has raised $18.2 million in seed round of funding in a round that saw participation from close to 50 investors, including Jane Street, Struck Crypto, The Spartan Group, Big Brain Holdings, DFG, Ghaf Capital Partners, and Foresight Ventures among others. Launched in 2021 by WazirX founder Nishchal Shetty, the company also saw participation from investors like CoinGecko Ventures, Wemade, and ZebPay.

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Globalfair, a B2B company, picks up $20 million from Lightspeed: Lightspeed Venture Partners
invested in Globalfair, a B2B construction material supplier. The Gurugram based company also saw existing investors India Quotient and Saama Capital participating in the round, raising %20 million.The company says its technology allows the buyer to start interacting with the traditional process, from building cost estimates to architectural plans and real-time GPS-enabled tracking of the material.

Drivetrain AI raises $15 million in fresh funding: Financial modelling software provider for businesses
Drivetrain AI has raised $15 million as part of a fresh funding round led by Elevation Capital, Jungle Ventures and Venture Highway. Over 25 startup founders, advisors and investors including the likes of Notion’s Akshay Kothari; Whatfix’s Khadim Batti and Amit Sharma; Chargebee’s Krish Subramanian and Karthik Srinivasan also participated in the funding round.

Beepkart raises $9 million, led by Vertex Ventures: Online used two-wheeler marketplace
Beepkart raised $9 million in a funding round led by Vertex Ventures South East Asia & India. The round also saw participation from existing investors Stellaris Venture Partners and Chiratae Ventures, which had led the company’s $3 million seed round in September 2021.

Beepkart said that the money will be used to scale up the business, customer experience, internal products and systems, as well as branding and operations.