Indian financial services startup MobiKwik seeks to raise about $84.2 million through issue of new shares in an initial public offering in the home market, it said in a draft prospectus filed with the local markets regulator Friday.
This is the second time MobiKwik has filed the paperwork for an IPO.
It does plan to raise about $16 million in a pre-IPO round, it said.
SBI Capital and DAM Capital are the lead book running managers for the IPO process, the prospectus said.
MobiKwik is the latest Indian startup that is looking to go public this year.
E-commerce startup FirstCry is seeking to raise $218 million through issue of fresh shares in its initial public offering, the 13-year-old startup said in a draft prospectus filed with the market regulator Thursday, becoming the latest Indian startup to explore the public markets.
FirstCry earlier sought to raise as much as $700 million in its Mumbai IPO, but deterred the plan as the market conditions worsened.
Brainbees Solutions, the parent firm of online baby product marketplace FirstCry, said that some investors including SoftBank.
The startup is eyeing a valuation of about $4 billion, down from previous $6 billion ambitions, according to a person familiar with the matter.
FirstCry said it hadn’t set the price in its draft prospectus.
According to DocSend data, investors aren’t scouring pitch decks as earnestly as they were in the past.
“For founders now, perfecting the pitch, having an efficient sales strategy, and scoping the product with urgency will create a strong foundation for success that attracts investors.”Thanks for reading and happy holidays!
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“The drier funding climate of 2023 only served to weed out the weaker businesses that had managed to secure capital in 2021,” she writes.
Benefitting from that long-term trend is SME-focused, customized merchandise startupBizay, which has been able to raise a significant funding round, even in this relatively flat market of 2023.
The round was led by previous lead investor Indico Capital Partners which was once again joined by fellow Portugal investors Iberis Capital and Lince Capital.
That takes Bizay’s total funding to €72 million ($79 million), though, when asked what they think the company’s valuation is now, a spokesperson demurred.
What’s also partly going on out there is an explosion in the creative economy, where — for instance— influencers are hooking up their various social platforms to customized merchandise platforms in order to, frnakly make some damn money.
We believe this can be replicated in the US market and we are backing the team again to execute that expansion.
There is no question that 2023 was a tough year for the venture and tech ecosystem.
Seed valuations have remained steady through 2022 and 2023, yet achieving the necessary traction for these rounds has become more challenging, which can create misaligned expectations for founders.
In 2020–2021, it was relatively common for $3 million to $5 million seed rounds to get done with very little, if any, traction, and they were typically getting done at $12 million to $25 million valuations, depending on the space and the founders’ background.
The bar is much higher to raise an institutional seed round, and a founder/company often needs to prove a lot more in today’s market than they used to.
This dynamic means that many founders have to first raise a pre-seed round to get to those milestones and therefore raise multiple rounds to get to a Series A.
Emerging fund managers have had a tough time these past few years, and there is no telling when it will get better.
Her firm just closed a $23.4 million Fund II after two years of fundraising.
Wilkinson has no plans to raise a third fund anytime soon but has some advice for those who are, given the looming uncertainty in the venture market.
After 300 conversations with institutional LPs, I had an aha moment in which I realized that I did not want to primarily work with institutions in the future.
Individual investors are very different from institutional investors in all the right ways, in my opinion.
For a VC firm, the second fund is a make-or-break moment.
First, after raising €225 million for its initial fund ($245 million at today’s exchange rate), Singular managed to raise €400 million for the second fund.
Second, all the investors who participated in the first fund are back as limited partners in the second fund — this is a good signal.
This wasn’t an obvious outcome for the VC firm, as it’s been a wild ride over the past two or three years in venture capital.
Building a big European VC fundUnlike many VC firms based in Paris, Singular has been investing in European startups from day one.
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