Daily funding roundup - August 3, 2015

Snapdeal raised $500M; Driveway Software bagged $10M; Meal Box got $3.6M

• Snapdeal has raised another $500 million in funding, according to a report from ReCode on Sunday. Investors included Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, along with Foxconn, the Taiwanese iPhone manufacturer  and existing Snapdeal investor SoftBank. Prior to this round, the New Dehli-based Snapdeal had raised $1.1 billion in funding.
  
  
• A Pune-based restaurant discounts startup, Ressy, closed an angel round of $400,000 from notable investors in the ecosystem, including Mohandas Pai. The startup, which currently covers restaurants only in Pune and Goa, plans to use the funding to expand in Pune across the sectors like wellness, adventure, and modern retail as well.
  
  
• BoardVitals, a startup based in New York City, has raised $1.1 million in Series A funding from Rock Creek Capital, a Salt Lake City based growth equity  fund. This follows initial seed funding from several investors, including Blueprint Health, Rothenberg Ventures, and Charles Boorady, the number one healthcare  investor, according to Forbes. BoardVitals has rapidly gained market share by redefining a siloed industry, medical assessments and certifications, and the company has been on a growth tear since it was founded in 2013. BoardVitals has trained over 30,000 doctors and the product has been purchased by over 150 institutions in the past year alone. 
  
  
• Swajal Water Pvt Ltd, a Gurgaon-based water purification solutions firm, has raised $1.2 million (Rs 7.5 crore) in its Series A round of funding led by Abhishek Gupta. Existing investors like solar engineering and consultancy company Saurya EnerTech among others also participated in the round. Swajal will use the funding for innovation in energy efficient and low cost community based water purification systems.
  
  
• A Los Angeles startup called FEM Inc. raised $3 Million in seed funding from Javelin Venture Partners, MESA Ventures and Techstars, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company in connection with the company's participation in the Disney Accelerator program and several angel investors to help them do just that with a video engagement platform called Prizma.
  
  
• Irish wireless technology company Benetel is to hire 15 people in mainly technical roles having raised funding of €750,000 (around $823,000) through the AIB Seed Capital Fund, which is co-managed by Dublin BIC. The new positions for engineers who specialise in small cell technology will bring Benetel’s workforce up to 35.
  
  
• SaaS-based user engagement and analytics platform WizRocket, landed $8 million funding from Sequoia Capital and existing investor Accel Partners.  The company had previously raised funding from Accel Partners in July last year and has raised an overall $9.6 million funding until now. The company plans to use the fresh capital raised to launch a new engagement platform and an API for developers. 
  
  
• A startup called Driveway Software has bagged $10 million in a Series A round led by Ervington Investments for technology that senses and rates drivers’ safety through their own smartphones, even if their ride is a beater without any such bells and whistles. For now, Driveway Software generates revenue by helping insurance providers understand who among their clients are the safest or most dangerous drivers, then set rates for their policies accordingly.
  
  
• Meal Box, a healthy meal delivery startup, is looking to corner the take-out market in the world’s fifth-largest city. Backed by $3.6 million in funding from Aslanoba Capital, one of Turkey’s most active venture firms, the company wants to replace fast food with traditional, healthy Turkish cooking for a generation of young people and families that rely increasingly less on full-time, in-home cooks.
  
  
• GetYourHero, a Barcelona, Spain-based online cleaning marketplace, raised $1.7 million in venture capital. Seaya Ventures made the investment. The company intends to use the funds to grow in the Southern Europe.
  
  
• Online marketplace for automobiles Droom, run by Droom Technology Pvt. Ltd, secured $16 million in fresh funds led by venture capital firm Lightbox. Droom will use the money to expand its operations within the country and overseas. Droom currently has a team of over 85 people in Gurgaon and Silicon Valley in the US.
  
  
• Ocera Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on acute and chronic orphan liver diseases, announced a $20 million debt facility from Oxford Finance LLC (Oxford) and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Ocera intends to use the additional capital to support the ongoing development of the company's novel molecule OCR-002 to treat acute and chronic patients with hepatic encephalopathy.
  
  
• Japanese giant SoftBank has led US$100 Million investment round in the Gurgaon-based online aggregator of budget hotels OYO Rooms. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital India and Greenoaks Capital also participated in this investment round. This funding will be used to increase the size of the network to 50,000 rooms across 100 cities by the end of this year. It will also be used to implement new customer experience initiatives and build technology products.
  
  
• Jay Chaudhry, founder of cloud security company Zscaler Inc., figures he has a good shot at an IPO in the wake of massive security breaches at Target and Home Depot. Zscaler Inc., has raised $100 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion. It is the sixth company started by Mr. Chaudhry, who’s founder, chairman and chief executive. All of his previous companies were acquired—one of them, CipherTrust, sold to Secure Computing in 2006 for about $274 million—but Zscaler is already bigger.
  
  
• China’s top Airbnb-like site, Tujia secured its biggest ever round of Venture Capital funding – to the tune of US$300 million. Luo Jun, the founder and CEO of Tujia, relayed the news this morning on his personal Weibo account (via QQ Tech). Luo added that Tujia, which started operations in 2011, is now valued at over US$1 billion – so it’s officially a startup “unicorn”. It has raised a total of US$455 million from private investors in four major rounds. This newest round was led by Hong Kong’s All-Stars Investment, which is a new backer for Tujia, with The Ascott, a chain of serviced apartments that’s a part of CapitaLand, also joining in.
  
  

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Image source: globalfinancialfunding.com