Weekly rundown: LeadSquared turns unicorn; Pine Labs, Evenflow make acquisitions

Bengaluru-based sales automation SaaS platform LeadSquared became the latest company to join the unicorn club after securing an investment of $153 million from WestBridge Capital in its Series C round. With the fresh capital, the company plans to double down on growth investments in India and North America, expand to APAC and EMEA, add new offerings to its product portfolio, fund acquisitions, and double its headcount in the next 18 months. LeadSquared had previously raised $32 million led by Gaja Capital in 2020, and $3 million of Series A led by Stakeboat Capital in 2019.

Singapore-based neo-banking start-up StashFin bagged $270 million of Series C funding in a mix of equity and debt round led by Uncorrelated Ventures, Fasanara Capital and Abstract Ventures. Returning investors in this round include Altara Ventures, Tencent, Kravis Investment Partners and Snow Leopard. The round, consisting of $70 million of equity and $200 million of debt, valued the start-up at $700-800 million. StashFin, whose client base is only in India currently, will use the fresh capital to expand to Southeast Asia and other South Asian markets.

Tea cafe chain Chaayos pocked $53 million in a new round of funding led by Alpha Wave Ventures with participation from all existing investors including Elevation Capital, Tiger Global and Think Investments. The company will use the capital for tech-enhancement, hiring and store expansion as it plans to add 100 stores by the end of this year. Founded in 2012, Chaayos runs 190 stores across 6 cities and plans to add another 100 by the end of 2022.

In other major transactions this week, IFC-backed B2B food and agritech platform Waycool raised $40 million; EV charging infra startup Statiq pocketed $25.7 million; and fintech firms WeRize and FinBox secured $15 million each.

In the mergers and acquisition space, Noida-based merchant commerce platform Pine Labs announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based API infrastructure start-up Setu. This is Pine Labs’ third acquisition this year. Setu’s use cases span a variety of digital ecosystems, including Aadhaar eSign, BBPS bill payment, payment collection integration through WhatsApp, and FASTag payment collection.

Evenflow Brands, an aggregator of third-party online sellers, acquired Trendy Home, a Tamil Nadu based home furnishing brand that sells exclusively on Amazon US. This is Evenflow’s eighth acquisition in the last eight months. With Trendy Home, Evenflow is aiming to start building its capabilities in international markets, starting from Amazon US. More importantly, Evenflow is eyeing to replicate the infrastructure to scale other brands that it has acquired to make them debut on Amazon US.

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