Indian online learning giant Byju’s has acquired ed-tech startup WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million as it looks to expand its dominant reach in the country. The all-cash deal makes 18-month-old WhiteHat Jr., which offers online coding classes to school-going students in India and the U.S., the fastest exit story at this size in the Indian startup ecosystem.

Mumbai based WhiteHat Jr., which had raised about $11 million from Omidyar Network, Owl Ventures, and Nexus Venture Partners claims it has achieved an annual revenue run rate of $150 million. It will continue to operate as a separate entity for now, according to Byju’s spokesperson.

The founder of WhiteHat Jr., Karan Bajaj stated.“We started WhiteHat Jr. to make kids creators instead of consumers of technology. Technology is at the center of every human interaction today and we had set out to create a coding curriculum that was being delivered live and connected students and teachers like never before.”

Byju’s will make significant investments in WhiteHat Jr’s technology platform, product innovation while expanding the teacher base to cater to demand from new markets according to an official statement. Karan Bajaj will continue to lead and scale this business in India and the US.

“WhiteHat Jr is the leader in the live online coding space. Karan has proven his mettle as an exceptional founder and the credit goes to him and his team for creating coding programs that are loved by kids. Under his leadership the company has achieved phenomenal growth in India and the US in a short span of time,” said Byju Raveendran, founder, and chief executive of Byju’s.

Byju’s, which was backed by Mary Meeker’s Bond last month, is currently valued at $10.5 billion.

The purchase of WhiteHat Jr is also Byju’s largest acquisition, to date. It had previously acquired Osmo, a US-based learning platform, for which it paid $120 million, in January 2019. At the time, the deal was said to be part of the Bengaluru-based firm’s plan to aggressively expand internationally. Before that, Byju’s had acquired Math Adventures, TutorVista, and Vidyarthi.

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“We began the adventure with application security, and now we have climbed the worth chain by verifying systems, foundation, and cloud, as well,” says Venu Rao, Founder and CEO, WeSecureApp.

With the launch of their flagship product, Strobes, in July this year, the startup has remodeled from a solutions company to associate enterprise security product company, he adds. Strobes won the launch pad award at a shark-tank vogue competition at RSA Conference in Singapore this year WeSecureApp works with startups, together with Netmeds and Grofers, and enterprises, together with State bank of India mutual fund, Aditya Birla Capital, and DSP Investments.

“We work more like a partner than a vendor. We clearly understand our customer’s problems first, learn their goals, and then accordingly design a security road map of 12 to 24 months’ engagement,” says Venu.

The lead item, Strobes, is a security organization and defenselessness relationship stage. It associates with more than 50 defenselessness scanners and following and specialized instruments. Fueled by AI, Strobes investigations more than one million vulnerabilities from various feeds and distinguishes the provisos and indirect accesses that are being misused in a framework. Strobes is available on-premium and as a private SaaS solution. WeSecureApp charges between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 60 lakh per annum for this product, based on the size of the client company.

Most of WeSecureApp’s clients subscribe to their annual engagement programme. According to the founders, the company’s revenue has grown from Rs 50 lakh in FY17 to Rs 2.5 crore in FY19. As indicated by a MarketsAndMarkets report, the worldwide cybersecurity market size was esteemed at $137.63 billion out of 2017 and is anticipated to reach $248.26 billion by 2023, developing at a CAGR of 10.2 percent.

WeSecureApp is currently gearing up to showcase Strobes at the IT security conference RSA in the US in February 2020. The startup is also in talks with angel investors to raise seed funding of $500,000.

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Leading budget-hotels aggregator OYO has acquired Chennai-based service apartment company Novascotia Boutique Homes.

This is OYO’s first business acquisition since its launch in 2013.

With this acquisition, OYO will bring its distribution, operational, transformational and technological capabilities on board.

The acquisition will boost OYO’s portfolio by 350 rooms across locations where Novascotia has its footprints.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO of OYO, said: “Though in the niche segment of boutique homes, Novascotia brings with it the expertise in catering to the corporate travel segment, an area we have seen great potential and established ourselves as the market leader with varied offerings across 230-plus cities including all major corporate hubs.”

“The acquisition forms an integral part of our inorganic growth plan, in line with our ambition to create beautiful and quality living spaces and adding value to every form of real estate. OYO is poised to deliver 180,000 keys by the end of 2018 and with Novascotia’s Strength, we will be adding service apartments to our existing portfolio – which includes budget rooms, OYO Townhouse, OYO Home, enabling us to offer a wide range of choices to our customers,” he added.

With 100% of its demand coming from corporates and a healthy EBITDA of 14%, Novascotia has built a strong portfolio for itself while providing executive furnished accommodation to corporates for their personnel stay in locations, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi and Trivandrum and OYO plans to expand these offerings to 12 cities by the end of 2018. These serviced apartments are located in the heart of business hubs equipped with spacious rooms, upscale interiors, meals, gym and dining area to cater all the requirements of business travellers.

G. Madhu Manohar and Girja Madhu, Co-founders, Novascotia, said, “Novascotia is a brand built over years with a lot of commitment and hard work. With OYO, we saw similar passion towards solving a problem and we are thrilled to become a part of the entity which is driven by perseverance and innovation. We are convinced that OYO with its wide experience in the hospitality business and hunger for delivering quality customer experience has every potential to take the Novascotia brand promise of ‘home away from home; forward. We are delighted with the support and professionalism received from OYO, its teams and our advisers at ANOVA Corporate Services for taking this to closure. We are excited to be onboard.”

OYO has operations in more than 230 cities across India, Malaysia and Nepal. With over 70,000 rooms in its network, OYO works in close proximity with its hotel partners while exercising full control over the hotels for ensuring a quality experience for travellers. Its network includes major metros, regional business hubs, top leisure destinations as well as pilgrimage towns.

OYO is backed by leading investors, including the SoftBank Group, Greenoak Capital, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Hero Enterprise and China Lodging Group.

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It looks like the on-demand home services market is on the path to revival. After a tough period between 2015 and 2016 of shut-downs and other struggles, the industry has finally witnessed a positive development.

PickMyLaundry, an on-demand dry-clean and laundry services startup, has acquired OneClickWash, a subscription-based laundry and dry clean startup. According to a statement, it was an all-cash deal. However, the size of the deal remains undisclosed.

Post acquisition, both the brands will continue to run as separate entities.

With this acquisition, PickMyLaundry will leverage OneClickWash’s laundry processing unit, team, and tech infrastructure to improve service efficiency. OneClickWash’s unit has the capacity to process 1,000kgs of clothes per day.

The OneClickWash deal has added subscription-based washing and ironing service to PickMyLaundry’s suite of services. Right now, the combined entity will run in a hybrid model.

Gaurav Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO of PickMyLaundry, said: “Being a fast growing company, we are always on the lookout for more laundry startups to augment our supply chain. OneClickWash will help us penetrate deeper within the NCR region, reduce our processing cost and improve customer experience by reducing the turnaround time.”

PickMyLaundry was started in May 2015 by IIT graduates Agrawal, Ankur Jain, and Samar Sisodia. The company currently operates in Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, and Bangalore. PickMyLaundry runs an offline experience store in Gurgaon. The store is equipped with coin-operated washing machines and steam irons. It provides express washing and ironing service and delivers the garments in two hours.

PickMyLaundry is backed by GHV Accelerator and HUL executive Kedar Lele.

OneClickWash’s Founder Vivek Iyer said: “Over the past two years, we have created a significant footprint for the laundry category in Gurgaon through a robust laundry processing unit aided by tech tools. I am confident that the PickMyLaundry team will leverage the value that we have built to scale across the country. ”

OneClickWash has previously secured funding from Unitus Seed Fund and other unnamed angel investors.

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Pocketin’s entire team along with its founders will join OneLoyalCard at their office. This move will help strengthen OneLoyalCard’s technology and quicken its expansion plans across major markets in India.

Currently, OneLoyalCard provides 2,000+ deals at over 500+ restaurants in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida & Faridabad. Customers can use OneLoyalCard’s website or app to explore restaurants, book table, buy deals or organize parties.

Arpit Aggarwal, Vaibhav Garg and Sahil Mendiratta, all Chartered Accountants and 2nd-Generation entrepreneurs, started OneLoyalCard in July 2015 with a vision to enhance diners’ experience and to provide a comprehensive marketing solution to the restaurants.

The restaurant industry today is worth over Rs 114 Billion and is growing at a tremendous pace amid renewed interest, especially from multinational chains. Particularly, in the last six months, the metro cities have seen a huge surge in new restaurants being opened. New restaurants are initially able to attract customers but they eventually see decline in footfalls due to lack of customer retention and retargeting mechanisms.

OneLoyalCard plugs this loophole by providing the restaurants a ready-to-use complete loyalty program. Every time diners book their table with OneLoyalCard’s website or app, they are entitled to discounts of upto 35% on the bill. Additionally, diners accumulate loyalty points for exclusive use at the restaurant. Loyalty points enable diners to unlock exclusive rewards and offers at the restaurants. The exclusive loyalty-based rewards have led to a huge repeat user base for the restaurants, solving the customer retention issues.

Currently, more than 500 premium restaurants in Delhi NCR region have partnered with OneLoyalCard to reward their loyal customers. The concept of easy reservations with deals and offers, combined with exclusive loyalty rewards has enticed users to choose OneLoyalCard as their preferred platform for booking dining experiences.

Vaibhav Garg, Director at OneLoyalCard said “We have always focussed on creating real value for both diners and restaurants. We have been asset light and have managed to build a loyal customer base in a space where others have been burning cash from their pockets. By acqui-hiring Pocketin, we will consolidate our position in Delhi NCR region and fast-forward our expansion plans to other major markets.” OneLoyalCard is planning to be operational in six cities by the end of Dec 2017.

Pocketin was founded in 2015 by Kshitij Mehra and Anirudh Mondal. It was a table reservation plus deals aggregation platform for restaurants with a real time pricing engine working on a proprietary algorithm. It raised a seed round of 150,000 USD in Feb 2016 from Hong Kong based VC, Swastika.

Kshitij Mehra, co-founder of Pocketin says “ Pocketin found perfect synergy with OneLoyalCard as both the teams believed in similar values and our vision was in sync. We believe that at OneLoyalCard, we have the opportunity to build a better consumer oriented product and scale it faster across India. Our entire team is excited to embark on this new journey”

OneLoyalCard has recently added prepaid deals and party booking features on its website and apps. Furthermore, it plans to add event ticketing for restaurants and expansion into wellness vertical.

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News Corp VCCEdge, the financial research platform of News Corp VCCircle has released its annual deals report for CY2016.

Capturing funding deal activities encompassing private equity, venture capital, angel/seed investment transactions for the year ending December 2016, the report also offers information on mergers and acquisitions, exits and the funds raised during the year.

Key highlights:

Domestic M&A going strong

• The number of M&A deals remained robust this year with 1,002 deals recorded, with the value of deals hitting a five-year high of $61.44 billion -– a jump of 159% in value terms from 2015 which saw 995 deals amounting to $23.71 billion.
• There were 633 domestic M&A deals amounting to $32.77 billion -– a jump of over 278% in value terms and 143 Inbound deals amounting to $18.78 billion -– a jump of over 133% in value terms.
• Outbound deals recorded this year saw a 16% dip in number at 115 while the deal value declined 8% to $4.9 billion when compared to CY2015.
• The hike in the M&A deal value can be attributed to the three deals worth $27.7 billion which includes, Essar Oil Ltd, Max Life Insurance Co. Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd., Wireless Telecom Business acquisitions contributing 45% of the overall deal value.

Exits instill confidence

• Private equity investors unlocked $6.79 billion worth of investments across 239 exits in 2016 – nearly 17% more in value terms when compared to 2015 and the highest in the past five years.
• M&A exits were the flavor of the year contributing 43% of the total exit activity closely followed by open market exits at 32%.

Return of the IPO

• 2016 has been a record year for IPOs, wherein fundraising via IPOs surged to a five-year high with $4.12 billion raised across 93 IPOs when compared to $2.19 billion from 62 IPOs in 2015.
• Overall Equity Capital Market (ECM) deals constituting IPOs, Follow on Offerings, Rights issue, QIP and Private Placements increased by 18% in 2016 with 116 deals as compared to 98 in 2015, however, capital raised dipped by ~20% from $6.17 billion to $4.99 billion

Angels hold transaction volumes in a tepid year of funding

• Angel and Seed investors drove the deal activity during the year, contributing 57% of the total private equity investments in 2016. This figure stood at 32% in 2012 and has been rising every year. They accounted for 748 deals amounting to $324 million.
• The number of PE deals slumped almost 25% to 1309 deals. The value of PE transactions, slumped by 44% to around $12.38 billion from $22.01 billion in 2015.
• Early-stage investments in start-ups (including angel/seed and VC Series A and Series B rounds) has shown a significant decline of 39% to $1.59 billion in CY2016, as compared to $2.62 billion last year, while deal volume declined by 24% from 1,286 to 984 deals
• Bridge round accounted for 50 deals worth $40.1 million accounting for 14% of the total venture capital deals proving the challenges in raising fresh round of funding
• Average deal value slipped to $13.09 million in 2016, as compared to $14.48 million a year ago. Though median deal value saw a slight increase from $0.91 million last year to $1 million this year

Guided by Circumspection: PE Funds Launched

• There were 50 new PE funds launched during the year with a targeted capital of $5.3 billion – a fall of 11% in number and over 68% in value terms. In 2015 there were 56 new funds launched with a targeted capital of $ 16.9 billion.
• Of these 50, 34 had a fund size of under $100 million while there were only three in the above $500 million category.

Nita Kapoor, Head – India New Ventures, News Corp, and CEO, News Corp VCCircle, said: “While M&A activity in India perked up in 2016 thanks to a few multi-billion-dollar deals that companies struck either to slash debt or consolidate their market share, what we are seeing is the flow of angel/seed money into enterprises in sectors like fintech, healthcare, education and travel which will continue into 2017. There is a huge funding opportunity for start-ups operating in these sectors that succeed in delivering a good consumer experience.”

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The home improvements space has witnessed six consecutive years of rising founding activity, from 50 startups founded in 2010 to 343 in 2015, according to a report by startups research platform Tracxn.

Following two years of peak funding, the home improvements sector received just $364.5 million in funding in 2016, a significant drop from US$1.5 billion in 2015. Deal activity dropped across the board, though late-stage funding dropped most significantly by 93% YoY, from $907 million to $57 million, accounting for a majority of the shortfall.

In 2014, the average ticket size for a Series B round was $51.1 million, which has fallen to $10.4 million in 2016.

Home Improvements – Top investments in last one year

2016’s funding leaderboard was topped by Mumbai-based furniture and home products marketplace Pepperfry ($31 million in Series E), and New York-based Homepolish ($16M in Series A), an online booking platform for interior designers.

Bangalore-based home decor private label brand LivSpace ($14M, Series B) and furniture rental platform Furlenco ($15M, Series B) were other startups that secured funding this year.

Companies using AR, VR, and 3D rendering technology for visualization of furniture saw almost a 3X spike in funding in 2016, from $12.6M in 2015 to $49.5M in 2016. Beijing-based ART1001 ($15M, Series A), which provides a VR-based platform for interior designing; San Jose-based Rooomy ($13M, Series B), a provider of provider of virtual staging solutions; and San Francisco-based Modsy (Series A, $8M) a home design solutions provider, bagged the largest investments in this space.

Seven companies got acquired in 2016, all were operating in the B2C commerce space, and were fire sales. One Kings Lane, once valued close to $1B got acquired by Bed Bath & Beyond for $12M. Jet.com acquired Hayneedle for $90M, and Rocket Internet sold FabFurnish in India to Future Group for $3M.

Blue Box- Home Improvements

500 Startups (Barn, Havenly), Great Oaks VC (Houzz, AptDeco), and Sequoia Capital (HomeLane, Urban Ladder) are the most active investors in this space. The report covers online-first companies operating in the home improvements industry in B2C, B2B, and secondary markets; tech enablers, and service facilitators.

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