Good morning it's Friday and gosh has it been a busy week- I don't think I've ever seen so many M&A announcements in a single week ever in the Indian Startup ecosystem. Today we have some edtech news (no- not an acqusition) and some #MilkTech news.
http://tcrn.ch/3k2Fw8o: Leverage Edu raises a $6.5M Series A
➡️ Studing abroad is big business and it's exactly why Leverage Edu has been able to raise a $6.5M Series A round led by Tomorrow Capital with existing investors Blume Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners participating as well.
➡️ Every year hundreds of thousands of Indians leave the country to go study for both undergraduate and graduate courses. This number has seen a boom in the last decade or two and is poised to go up. Indian international students already make up the second largest yearly immigrants into the US and as the Biden-Harris administration comes into power I assume the folks coming into the US will only increase.
➡️ And while the upper strata of society might have college counsellors in their schools itself or hire expensive personal counsellors (just google Viral Doshi fees)- it is certainly not within everyone's reach. And while some folks might know exactly where they want to go study and what they want to study, not everyone does.
➡️ And this is where Leveredge Edu steps in- by offering mentorship in some sense to help pick a course and a college but then it also helps with education loans, visas and accomodation along with other services (which is where it makes money).
➡️ The company is planning on using the capital it raised to expand deeper into markets like U.K and Australia (which are also very popular amongst Indian students) and potentially more financial services since that is often a challenge while moving to a different country (i.e like we just talked about Zolve yesterday). Here's also a thread by the founder Akshay on their journey so far-



http://bit.ly/2Zudk4TL Reliance is set to acquire Milkbasket
➡️ In what seems like a sad end to the #MilkTech industry, it seems like Reliance will be acquiring Milkbasket in a deal that would value the company at ~$40M. Anant Goel, the CEO, will be joining Reliance while the other co-founders will move after the transaction.
➡️ The company was certainly having its own struggles as it was looking for an acquisition for the last 6-8 months their recent conflict with one of their investors Kalaari certainly didn't help their case. The firm sold their stake to MN Televentures despite resistance from the Milkbasket board and founders as the firm had close relations with Reliance.
➡️ And while Kalaari was able to salvage its investment in Milkbasket, they likely hurt their co-investors (I do not know the terms of this acquistion so can't say what kind of return Mayfield, Blume or Unilevel Ventures would make). This is also not the first Kalaari-backed company that was sold to Reliance in a fire-sale (UrbanLadder and Zivame).
➡️ Ultimately it seems like this is the end of independent milk delivery services as the industry has been consolidated completely. And for Milkbasket, it probably means that it will probably helping Reliance roll out its daily subscription commerce platform (daily milk + groceries) that launched as a pilot last year.
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