India Funding Roundup: Ola, ConveGenius, Goodbox, Craftsvilla, ScoopWhoop

Ola
Taxi aggregator Ola has raised $500 million (roughly Rs. 3,299 crores) from Baillie Gifford, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and others on Wednesday. Ola's founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said that the company has grown by over 30 times in the last one year, and now fields over one million booking requests a day.

Convegenius
Noida-based edutainment startup ConveGenius has raised Rs. 2 crores in a pre-Series A round of funding from 'Enablers', a Web-based platform that connects and facilitates fundraising transactions between investors and startups. Founded in 2013 by Jairaj Bhattacharya and Shashank Pandey, ConveGenius is focused on mobile-based learning using gamification, adaptive analytics and intelligent content aggregation. ConveGenius claims to have reached out to more than 50,000 students in the last one and half years through its products.

Goodbox
Bengaluru-based Goodbox, which provides a mobile app to chat and order from local businesses, announced Wednesday that it has raised $2.5 million (roughly Rs. 16.5 crores) in Series A from Nexus Venture Partners. Founded in 2014, the company's mission is to get every business to create their store on the app and make that their primary way to interact with consumers, and is currently operational in Bengaluru with over 1200 merchants.

Craftsvilla
Mumbai-based Craftsvilla, an online marketplace for handmade and handcrafted products has reportedly raised $34 million (roughly Rs. 220 crores) led by existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company is reportedly looking to go public in the next 12-18 months.

ScoopWhoop
New Delhi-based Internet media and news startup, ScoopWhoop has raised $4 million (roughly Rs. 26.4 crores) from Kalaari Capital. The company plans to use the latest round of funding for aggressive expansion of its video production unit, ScoopWhoop Talkies. ScoopWhoop reportedly drives almost 20 million unique visitors monthly across its portals.