Weekly rundown: Uniphore turns unicorn, Jio backs InMobi's Glance, Mamaearth snaps up BBlunt

Conversational AI platform Uniphore is this week’s unicorn. The Chennai and California-based company entered the coveted club as its valuation zoomed past $2.5 billion on the back of a fresh $400 million funding. New Enterprise Associates led the round and March Capital, Sorenson Capital Partners, and Sanabil Investments participated. The Series E round brings Uniphore’s total funding to $610 million.

Glance, the AI-driven lock-screen platform owned by ad-tech firm InMobi, announced a $200 million funding round from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries' Jio Platforms Limited. With the fresh capital, the Alphabet-backed company plans to grow beyond Asian countries to many global markets including USA, Brazil, Mexico and Russia. Glance has also entered into a business partnership arrangement with RIL’s retail arm Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) to integrate its ‘lock screen platform’ into the JioPhone Next smartphones. The deal is also expected to lead to further strategic collaborations between Glance, Reliance Retail and Jio across devices, commerce, content and gaming ecosystem.

GOQii Inc, a tech-enabled healthcare platform, secured $50 million in a mix of equity and debt round led by Sumeru Ventures. The round saw participation from existing investors Mitsui, funds advised by MegaDelta, DSG Consumer Partners, Galaxy Digital, Denlow Investment Trust, Edelweiss, Cheetah Mobile, GWC, Ratan Tata, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma among others. Blacksoil Capital and Trifecta Capital contributed to the venture debt component of the round. The company plans to use the funds to grow its insurance and digital therapeutics vertical in India.

Social e-commerce start-up DealShare, which recently become a unicorn, added an additional $45 million to its capital pool. The latest tranche came from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and valued the company at $1.7 billion. In January, the company raised $165 million in a Series E funding round at a valuation of over $1.6 billion.

Education-focused fintech platform Propelld raised $35 million in Series B funding led by WestBridge Capital along with existing investors Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient.

Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd. (HCPL), the parent company of Mamaearth, announced it has acquired Bblunt, a hair care, hair colour and styling products brand from Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL), along with Bblunt salons operated by Bhabani Blunt Hair Dressing Pvt. Ltd. Separately, Godrej Consumer Products stated in a regulatory filing that it will receive a total of Rs 84.5 crore from the divestment business. Bblunt hair care and styling products business will be completely owned and managed by Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd. However, Bblunt salon business will continue to operate as an independent entity.