November has not started on a good note for the Indian startup ecosystem as venture capital (VC) funding came in around the $ 100 million level. This is mostly likely due to lower activity given that the year is coming to a close.

The total funding for the first week of November stood at $101 million across 21 deals. In comparison, the previous week saw a total amount of $289 million.

This lower amount of funding for the week was largely due to the absence of large deals. Additionally, the months of November and December generally tend to see lower activity as it is the last two months of the year.

Now the Indian startup ecosystem will start to prepare for next year and it is unlikely there will be any dramatic change. The VC inflow is expected to remain steady with no major downside expected in the present environment.

The Indian startup ecosystem saw heightened activity during the week with the IPO of Swiggy getting subscribed more than three times. The numbers from Ola for the second quarter were a mixed bag.

Key transactions

Easy Home Finance raised $35 million from Claypond Capital, Asia Rising Fund, Xponentia Capital, Finsight Ventures and Harbourfront Capital.

Fitness brand Boldfit raised Rs 110 crore ($13 million approx.) from Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).

Spacetech startup GalaxEye raised $10 million from MountTech Growth Fund, Mela Ventures, Speciale Invest, ideaForge and Samarthya Investment Advisors.

Robotics startup CynLr raised $10 million from Pavestone, Athera Venture Partners, Speciale Invest and Infoedge (Redstart).

Drone technology firm Marut Drones raised $6.2 million from Lok Capital.

Hala Mobility raised Rs 51 crore ($6 million approx.) from a network of angel investors and family offices.

Backpacker hostel brand The Hosteller raised Rs 48 crore ($5.6 million) from V3 Ventures, Blacksoil, Synergy Capital Partners and Unit e-Consulting.

Service infrastructure in EV is also not just an Ola problem, it’s an industry problem, Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO of Ola Electric, said during the company’s second quarter earnings call on Friday.

“… it’s an industry problem because training the mechanics in EV, battery maintenance, motor, electronics, software, all these are new things. So, we are investing effort into doing this, which I believe is probably the last leg of confidence customer needs,” Aggarwal said.

Earlier this month, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued a show cause notice to Ola Electric, citing alleged violations of consumer rights, misleading advertisements, and unfair trade practices.

Addressing recent reports of 80,000 monthly service interactions, the Ola Electric founder clarified that these figures arise from routine maintenance and minor inquiries, and are not solely complaints. He added that 80,000 per month is not bad for a company with 8 lakh vehicles in operation, if majority of them are scheduled or minor queries.

“I think there are a lot of numbers floating around. Even if you take the 80,000 number from the press, if you think of any typical OEM product, it has one to two scheduled maintenance per year. If you have, let’s say, a million install base, that’s one and a half to 2 million service touch points per year. Now that makes it about 1.25 lakh a month,” he explained.

The company, which recently debuted on the Indian stock exchanges, posted a net loss of Rs 495 crore for the July-September quarter, narrowing from Rs 524 crore in the same period last year. However, its losses widened from Rs 324 crore on a quarterly basis.

The company saw its revenue from operations jump to Rs 1,214 crore in Q2 FY25, up from Rs 873 crore a year ago.

The Softbank-backed firm clocked a 73.6% increase in scooter deliveries, with 98,619 units sold this quarter compared to 56,813 units last year. As per the shareholder letter, the company’s gross margin rose by 12 percentage points to 20.3%, while the EBITDA margin fell by 17.6 percentage points to -28.4%.

Aggarwal added that the company will see growth over the next few quarters.

“The fundamentals of the EV transition of India remains very strong. As a leader of this transition, we feel confident to be a leader of this inflection point. As we launched our mass market portfolio a couple of quarters back, this quarter came into its own, we were able to supply it almost full demand. Quarter on quarter, our mass market products, the S1X portfolio grew 15%. Despite the growth in mass market, our premium market products continued to be a majority of our revenue,” he said.

Aggarwal revealed that Ola Electric is also developing three-wheelers and plans to launch 20 new products over the next two years, aiming to release at least one new product each quarter.

It also plans to expand its distribution network to 2,000 stores by March 2025 from the current 782 locations, alongside scaling its Network Partner Program.

“We think of firstly product and then volumes. Brand is an outcome of product experience of the customer and, obviously, at the scale at which we do it. Our premium products are holding very good, with our market share in the premium segment, in the S1 Pro or the S1 Air segment, being fairly high,” Aggarwal said.

In August, at its annual event Sankalp, Ola introduced the Roadster motorcycle series, with the first deliveries set for March 2025. The series includes models across mass and premium segments, priced between Rs 74,999 and Rs 249,999, featuring three models and eight variants.

“We have 782 company-owned stores as on September 2024, with each store delivering 130 sales per quarter, roughly 2-3X of industry average. We’re expanding our company-owned store (and colocated service infra) network to 2,000 company-owned stores by March 2025,” he said.

(Disclaimer: Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, is an independent director in Ola Electric.)

Zinka Logistics Solutions Ltd, a digital platform for truck operators, on Friday, said it has fixed a price band of Rs 259-273 per share for its Rs 1,115 crore initial share sale.

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) will open for public subscription on November 13 and conclude on November 18, the company announced.

The IPO is a combination of a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 550 crore and an offer of sale (OFS) of up to 2.06 crore shares. The OFS by promoters and investor-selling shareholders is valued at Rs 565 crore at the upper end of the price band.

A discount of Rs 25 per equity share is being offered to eligible employees bidding in the employee reservation portion.

Proceeds from the fresh issuance to the extent of Rs 200 crore will be used for sales and marketing initiatives; Rs 140 crore for investment in Blackbuck Finserve for financing the supporting the capital base to meet future capital requirements; Rs 75 crore for funding of expenditure in relation to product development, and a portion will be used for general corporate purposes.

Zinka Logistics is dedicated to transforming the trucking industry in India by digitally empowering truck operators to manage their businesses and increase their earnings. The company’s BlackBuck app serves as a comprehensive platform, providing solutions for payments, telematics, load management and vehicle financing.

The Bengaluru-based firm processed a Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of Rs 5,356.20 crore and Rs 17,396.19 crore in payments in the three months ended June 30, 2024, and fiscal 2024, respectively. The payments platform addresses significant expenses for truck operators, such as tolls and fuel.

The company partners with FASTag banks and multiple oil marketing companies (OMCs) to offer efficient and secure tolling and fuelling solutions, generating revenue through commission margins based on transaction values.

For the three months ended June 2024, the company’s revenue from continuing operations stood at Rs 92.17 crore with a profit after tax of Rs 28.67 crore.

The company said that 75% of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 15% for non-institutional buyers and the remaining 10% for retail investors.

Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley India Company, JM Financial and IIFL Capital Services are the book-running lead managers to the issue.