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Disruption: Startups & TechLystable Raises $11 million in Series-A

London-based Lystable has raised $11 million in Series-A funding from Valar Ven-tures, Goldcrest Capital and

Spring Partners. The startup has de-veloped a software tool that helps businesses manage freelancers.

Kwik Gets $3 million in Seed Funding Round

Tel Aviv-based Kwik has raised $3 million in a seed funding round. The invest-ment comes from Norwest

Venture Partners. The startup has de-signed a similar product to Amazon Dash Buttons.

Berlin’s Juniqe Raises €14 million in Series-B

Curated art marketplace Ju-niqe has raised €14 million in a Series-B funding round. The Berlin-based startup

got investors including Highland Eu-rope, Vorwerk Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds, and Redalpine.

Number26 Bags $40 million in Series-B

Berlin-based fintech startup Number26 has raised $40 million in Series-B funding. Investors include Horizons

Ventures, Battery Ventures, Valar Ventures, Earlybird Ventures, Redal-pine Ventures and others.

Global Roundup A brief look at what is

happening in the global technology and startup

space, giving you a bird’s eye view of deals,

investments and buys

Mugdha.Variyar@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru:Startups in travel bu-siness have received more fun-ding than ecommerce marketpla-ces so far this year, according todata sourced from research firmTracxn.

Travel startups have received$366,450,000 while ecommercemarketplace startups have recei-ved $357,831,100 in funding sincethe beginning of 2016, as per thedata. A bulk of the funds for travelstartups came through two deals,with Ibibo Group raising $250 mil-lion in February in a Series-C ro-und while OYO Rooms raised $100million in a Series-D round inApril.

Although travel startups are on-ly marginally ahead, this is thefirst time since 2011 that the seg-ment has featured among the topthree funded sectors. Online mar-

ketplaces stopped short of beingthe highest funded segment onlyin 2010, as per data from Tracxn.

Though much of the funding fortravel startups this year came

through just two deals, the sectorhas seen increasing interest frominvestors since last year, accor-ding to Tracxn’s data.

Travel startups raised among the

highest funding in the third quar-ter of 2015, with ConfirmTkt, Holi-dayIQ, JetSetGo, TripFactory,Wetravelsolo, WudStay, Zo Ro-oms,14Square, NightStay, OYO Ro-oms and Zo Rooms raising$164,100,186 between July and Sep-tember.

However, during that quarter, e-commerce marketplaces wereway ahead with $1,506,624,000 rai-sed by firms including Flipkart,Snapdeal, Paytm, Stylecracker,Gadgets360 and Glowship.

In the first quarter this year, tra-vel startups saw a funding of$253,250,000 raised by Con-firmTkt, SavvyMob, Ibibo Group,Roadhouse Hostels and Roomon-call while in the ongoing secondquarter GoHero, OYO Rooms, Rai-lYatri, Easy Roads, Stayzilla haveraised $113,200,000.

The travel sector saw more thandouble the number of startups be-ing founded this year, at 36, compa-red to 17 in ecommerce business.

Travel Beats Ecommerce inFunding Race Photo-finish

It’s All About the MoneyTOP FUNDED SECTORS

FUNDING RAISED BY TRAVEL STARTUPS IN 2016

Sector 2016(YTD)Total funding (in USD)

SavvyMo ConfirmTkt

$250KAngel

$2MSeries A

$1MSeed

$250MSeries C

$100MSeries D

$12MSeries C

Undisclosed Seed

Roadhouse Hostels: Undisclosed Seed in February

Travel$366 m *

$358 m *

$195 m *

$899,500,000

Ecommerce Marketplace

Automobile

Total

Approx*

Ibibo Group

OYO Rooms Stayzilla.com GoHero

Roomoncall

Neha.Alawadhi@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:The Congress has was-hed its hands of the tweets overwhich it got a legal notice from thefamily of RSS ideologue VinayakDamodar Savarkar.

The tweets put out by the verifiedTwitter handle of the Congress we-re not issued under the instruc-tions of Congress president SoniaGandhi or vice president RahulGandhi, the party said in its offici-al response, a copy of which was se-en by ET.

“Kindly note that the tweets arenot issued under instructions of orvetted by Congress president/Congress vice president/office be-arers, but remain the jurisdictio-nal domain of social media depart-ment,” the party said in its respon-se, which was signed by advocateKC Mittal.

ET was the first to report thatRanjit Savarkar, the grandnephewof Savarkar, sent a notice to theCongress, its president and vicepresident, alleging that some postson the microblogging site inMarch were defamatory to the RSS

ideologue. The Congress said “thematter is under examination” andthat it will send a response withintwo weeks.

Analysts said this is possibly thefirst instance of a political partyfacing a legal notice over tweetsposted on its official handle.

The Congress’ official Twitterhandle, “@INCIndia”, is a verifiedaccount, which means Twitter hasestablished the “authenticity ofidentities of key individuals andbrands” being represented by theprofile, indicated by a blue-colou-red check mark against the profilename. It has 1.05 million followers.

Tweets on Savarkar?Cong Absolves Gandhis

For the first time since 2011, travel segment has featured among the top three funded sectors

PHILADELPHIA In a new study,scientists at Temple Universityhave found a way to manufac-ture low-fat chocolate — bybombarding it with electricfields. And, some of the luckyfew who have gotten a taste ofit even claim that it tastes evenbetter than the original. “Wewant to reduce the fat thatmakes chocolate unhealthy tomake it better for future gener-ations,” lead author Rongjia Taosaid. “We developed a new sci-entific method to solve thislong outstanding problem.” — BI

Little CurrentCan Cut thatChocolate Fat

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