India Funding Roundup: Wishup, Shopclues, Hike, CarTrade, Rentomo

Our latest funding roundup sees some startups secure large investments in e-commerce, concierge services, apart from personal investments made by angels and veterans in mobile chat messengers, and rental marketplaces.

Wishup
Bengaluru-based concierge service startup, Wishup, Tuesday announced that it has raised an undisclosed sum of seed funding from TracxnLabs, 500 Startups, and Mato Peric, the former Partner and Global Managing Director at Rocket Internet. along with funding from a host of angels through TracxnSyndicate. The startup been operational on Facebook Messenger and its helpline number, and also announced the Beta launch of its Android app. In an emailed statement, Wishup said has already acquired over 10,000 customers during the short time since its inception in July 2015.

Shopclues
Online managed marketplace ShopClues has raised a fresh round of funding led by sovereign wealth fund GIC, becoming the latest entrant in the billion-dollar Unicorn club. The round saw participation from existing investors Tiger Global Management and Nexus Venture Partners, valuing the company at more than $1.1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,352 crores).

Hike
Hike Messenger announced investments from tech veterans Adam D'Angelo, Founder and CEO, Quora; Aditya Agarwal, Vice President Engineering, Dropbox; Ruchi Sanghvi, who was the Vice President, Operations, Dropbox, and Aditya Agarwal, Vice President Engineering, Dropbox. The veterans invested in the company in their personal capacities and are playing advisers to it, the company said in an emailed statement.

CarTrade
Online automobile classifieds portal CarTrade.com has reportedly secured $145 million (roughly Rs. 950 crores) from Temasek Holdings, March Capital and existing investor Warburg Pincus in its latest funding round. CarTrade reportedly lists more than 225,000 used cars for sale and works with over 10,000 car dealer partners, following its acquisition of CarWale in 2015.

Rentomo
Bengaluru-based rental listings platform Rentomo has reportedly raised a seed funding of $100,000 (roughly Rs. 66 lakhs) from Shiva Ashok and an unnamed UAE based investor. Rentomo enables a user to rent products in the trusted network such as Facebook friend circles, and handles 250 transactions a month.