Also in this letter:
■ Pakistan-based hackers step up attacks
■ ETtech Done Deals
■ Zerodha faces technical glitch
Temasek, Fidelity pump $200 million in Lenskart secondary deal at $5 billion valuation
Peyush Bansal, CEO, Lenskart
Singapore government’s sovereign fund Temasek and US financial services major Fidelity have together invested $200 million in Lenskart through a secondary share sale.
Deal details: The deal has valued Lenskart at $5 billion, up from $4.5 billion in its last round of funding, the company said, confirming our news break from April 25.
Early investors in Lenskart such as TR Capital, Avendus and others are believed to have sold a portion of their holdings. SoftBank — the largest institutional investor, with 16.5% — has not sold any stake in this round.
Why it matters: This is among the largest secondary share sales at a late-stage startup this year.
Secondary transactions typically occur at a lower price to the last primary funding valuation. However, in Lenskart’s case, it was at a premium – underscoring growing investor interest in fast-growing companies with a path to profitability.
In a secondary share sale, money changes hands between investors and does not go to the company coffers.
Scorecard: In FY23, the omnichannel eyewear retailer saw its consolidated operating revenue more than double to Rs 3,788 crore, from Rs 1,502 crore a year earlier. The company also reduced its losses to Rs 64 crore, from Rs 102 crore in FY22.
Also read | VCs looking for partial exits, investors eyeing IPO-bound firms push up secondary deals
Baron Capital marks up Swiggy valuation by 25% to $15.1 billion
Sriharsha Majety, MD & group CEO, SwiggyA fund managed by US-based asset manager Baron Capital has marked up the valuation of food and grocery delivery platform Swiggy to $15.1 billion.
Tell me more: This marks a jump of 25% from the last fair value recorded by the investor, according to regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Baron Capital has raised the fair value of its holding in Swiggy for the fourth straight time. The latest valuation ascribed to the Bengaluru-based company is as of March 31. As of December 31, 2023, Baron Capital valued Swiggy at $12.1 billion.
Forthcoming IPO: After securing a nod from its shareholders, Swiggy has confidentially filed draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for a $1.25-billion IPO.
The company is looking to raise Rs 3,750 crore ($450 million) in fresh capital through the IPO, which will also include an offer-for-sale component of up to Rs 6,664 crore ($800 million).
Cost-cutting measures: In the run-up to its public offering, Swiggy has been cutting down on spending while increasing focus on profitability.
Swiggy’s largest shareholder, Prosus, had in December said that Swiggy’s loss narrowed 35% from a year ago to $208 million for the half year ended September 30, 2023.
Pakistan-based hackers step up attacks against Indian govt systems
Pakistan-based groups SideCopy and Transparent Tribe (APT36) are increasingly targeting India’s government and defence IT systems by launching malware attacks amid elections, cybersecurity firm Quick Heal Technologies said.
Malware attacks: In recent weeks, the company has detected three distinct campaigns launched by SideCopy, each characterised by the deployment of two instances of the AllaKore remote access trojan (RAT) as the final malicious payload.
Spear-phishing email campaigns such as Operation RusticWeb and FlightNight have also emerged during this period, it said.
Quote unquote: “The infection typically commences with spear-phishing emails delivering malicious attachments or links that exploit vulnerabilities to gain initial footholds within target networks,” Sanjay Katkar, joint managing director at Quick Heal Technologies, told us.
ETtech Done Deals
Astrotalk cofounder Anmol Jain
Astrotalk raises $9.4 million from Left Lane Capital, Elev8 Venture Partners: Noida-based Astrotalk, which provides digital astrology consulting services, has raised $9.4 million in an ongoing funding round from existing investor Left Lane Capital and new investor Elev8 Venture Partners.
Climate tech firm LogicLadder raises $2.5 million: Sustainability and climate management solutions provider LogicLadder has raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by Singapore-based Big Capital and Zerodha-backed venture fund Rainmatter. The funds will be used to expand its global footprint in South Asia and North America.
Zerodha faces another technical glitch, users face Kite login issues
Zerodha cofounder Nithin Kamath
Zerodha, India’s second-largest broking platform, experienced a technical glitch this morning. Its official website kite.zerodha.com became inaccessible.
What happened? Zerodha’s website displayed the error message ‘503 Service Unavailable. No server is available to handle the request.’ Traders on social media platform X reported the issue but Zerodha’s official X id responded asking the users to connect to a different internet connection claiming the broking platform is “working fine.”
What the CEO said: In January, cofounder and CEO Nithin Kamath had said tech companies like Zerodha can’t have zero glitches as the business is time-sensitive and caters to a large number of users.
In 2023 alone, the company admitted to at least 8 technical glitches. Acknowledging the impact, Kamath said Zerodha has made significant architectural changes over the years.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Megha Mishra in Mumbai and Riya Roy Chowdhury in Bengaluru.
