STARTUPCENTRAL Snigdha Sengupta

Attero Recycling shapes up for the next round with direct-to-consumer play

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Over the next few months, Rohan Gupta and Nitin Gupta, founders of Noida-based Attero Recycling, will criss-cross the country setting up 20-odd electronic waste collection centers. Their objective is to make it easier for consumers to dispose off their old mobile phones, laptops and other obsolete electronic products in a responsible fashion. The Gupta siblings hope to take the lead…

Warburg Pincus leads $32 million round in online classifieds startup Quikr

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

New York-headquartered private equity heavyweight Warburg Pincus has acquired an undisclosed stake in online classifieds startup Quikr, leading a $32 million growth round of funding. Existing investors Matrix Partners India, Norwest Venture Partners and eBay have also participated in the latest round, said a press release. For Mumbai-based Quikr, which was spun out of online auctions company eBay India in…

Michael Moritz steps back from Sequoia due to rare illness

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz, among Silicon Valley’s legendary venture capitalists, is scaling back his day-to-day management of the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm, according to various media reports. In a letter informing Sequoia’s limited partners of the development on Monday morning, Moritz said that he has been “diagnosed with a rare medical condition which can be managed but is incurable.”…

Accel Partners, Helion back online taxi booking site TaxiForSure

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Venture capitalists have lately acquired a taste for taxi or car rental startups. Serenditpity Infolabs, a Bangalore-based startup that runs online taxi booking site TaxiForSure, has raised an undisclosed amount in venture capital from Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures, said a press release. Details on the stage of funding has not been disclosed either. TaxiForSure is the…

Hippocampus Learning raises $1.3 million from Lok Capital, Acumen

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC), a Bangalore-based education services provider that targets rural markets, has raised Rs 7 crore ($1.29 million) from Lok Capital and Acumen Fund as part of a Series A round of funding for an undisclosed equity stake. HLC will use the funds raised to expand its outreach to 7,000 students and 100 villages over the next two…

BootStrapToday rejigs product; in talks for $2 million Series A

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Pune-based Sensible Softwares, developer of software-as-a-service (SaaS) application lifecycle management platform BootStrapToday, is in talks with venture capital investors, including Sequoia Capital India, to raise $2 million as Series A funding. The company launched the alpha version of its product BootStrapToday V3.0, a revamped version (photo below) of its existing solution with sports a sleeker user interface, in mid-April and…

Image Credit: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Has Mr Mukherjee set the stage for a Angel Capital Association in India?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Startups may no longer have to worry about paying income tax on capital raised from angel investors. On Monday, amending an earlier proposal from March’s Union Budget, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee proposed to exempt capital raised by startups as angel investment from the purview of income tax. This, however, will be subject to a pre-condition. Only capital raised from notified…

MFIs Ujjivan, Equitas may raise $30 million from IFC

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Microfinance institutions (MFI) Ujjivan Financial Services and Equitas Holdings are in the process of raising $10 million and $20 million respectively as equity capital from developmental finance institution International Finance Corporation (IFC). The two deals were listed as proposed investments on its website on May 4. The two proposed investments would be IFC’s first in the domestic microfinance sector this…

Mumbai accelerator VentureNursery gets 120 entries for maiden bootcamp

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 1 Comments

Ravi Kiran and Shravan Shroff-backed startup accelerator VentureNursery has received more than 120 applications from startups teams, originating from 17 cities including Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and even from as far as Imphal and Patna. Applications were being accepted between April 1 and April 23. The final shortlist of between five and eight applicants who will participate in a 13-week bootcamp…

Post-funding Forus plans new products, team expansion

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Bangalore-based Forus Health, which raised $5 million in Series A funding from IDG Ventures India and Accel Partners last week, will launch a slew of new products for the ophthalmology screening market in the next 12 months. It also plans to boost its research and development team from the current 20 people to about 30 and grow the sales team…