India Funding Roundup: Zilingo, iStar, AppVirality, BigStylist, Didi

Zilingo
M-commerce marketplace app Zilingo, which launched its operations late October announced that it has raised $1.88 million from Sequoia India, Teru Sato of BeeNext ventures, as well as Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon of Freecharge.

Founded in 2015 by Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor, Zilingo is an 'app-first marketplace catering to the South-East Asian region - it is aimed at connecting smaller fashion, electronics and lifestyle sellers, and removing the hassles of shipping, tracking or processing payments for them. Zilingo's app went live on October 31 with a base of 300 sellers, the company said in an emailed statement.

iStar
iStar Skill Development Pvt Ltd, a Bengaluru-based vocational skills training provider, has reportedly raised $1.5 million (roughly Rs. Rs 10 crores) in its Series A round of funding led by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF). Founded in 2009 by IIM-Ahmedabad graduates Thilakan and Sreeram Vaidyanathan, the company reportedly plans to expand its operations across ten states, and improve its technological infrastructure and build new content.

BigStylist
Mumbai-based BigStylist.com, provider of on-demand beauty services at home has reportedly raised $1 million (roughly Rs. 6.6 crores) in its pre-Series A round of funding from Info Edge. Founded in 2015 by IIT Kharagpur graduates, Richa Singh, Chinmaya Sharma and Anurag Srivastava, the startup claims to have served 3,000 customers.

AppVirality
San Francisco and Hyderabad-based Appvirality, provider of a 'plug and play growth-hacking toolkit' for mobile apps has reportedly raised $500,000 (roughly Rs. 3.3 crores) in a fresh round of funding from its existing investors, a group of new angels, and Clicklabs. Founded by Laxman and Ram Papineni, the 12-month-old company claims to have generated more than 1.5 million installs, and plans to expand to a team of 25 in the next year.

Didi
Trailing the recent investment in Mumbai-based BookmyBai, another Mumbai-based on-demand maid provider run by Urbanity Multisolutions Pvt Ltd has reportedly raised $150,000 (roughly Rs. 1 crore) in angel funding from international angel investors Jozef Bardik, Leo Wang and Sangeeth Ram. Didi's services are operational in Chandivali, Powai and Ghatkopar areas of Mumbai. Its app on Google Play has less than 500 installs, and a 4.9 star rating.