🇮🇳 Roundup: Reliance VC arm buys online lingerie firm for $125m (Updated)

Update (March 21, 7.20 p.m. SGT): Adds news on PhonePe’s acquisition of GigIndia.

Startups in India, including FutureCure Health and JSB Healthcare, raised at least US$4.3 million in funding over the past day from international and local investors.

Here’s a snapshot of the fundraising:

Here’s some important tech news from India today:

Reliance VC arm buys online lingerie firm

Reliance Retail Ventures (RRV) has acquired 89% of Clovia by pouring 950 crore rupees (around US$125 million), which includes a primary investment and secondary share sale. The rest of the stake will belong to the startup’s founding team and management.

Founded in 2013, Clovia offers more than 3,500 products on its platform.

Prior to this deal, RRV had acquired two other online lingerie retailers: Zivame and Amante.

Payment app PhonePe acquires freelance platform GigIndia

The deal allows PhonePe to take advantage of GigIndia’s ecosystem of freelancers to help enterprises acquire more users. Neither company disclosed the value of the acquisition.

Currently, there are around 1.5 million freelancers on the GigIndia platform, which caters to over 100 clients.

Founded in 2015, PhonePe is a payment platform with more than 365 million registered users. The company also offers investment products such as gold and silver.

Meesho resellers raise concerns over social commerce app strategy

Starting out as a social commerce app that uses a network of resellers to sell products, Meesho turned into an ecommerce platform last year when it began selling directly to customers.