Urban Ladder buys BuyNBrag

Bangalore-based furniture e-tailer Urban Ladder has acquired BuyNBrag.com, a curated online marketplace for furniture and home decor. Prithvi Raj Tejavath, co-founder and chief executive officer of BuynBrag, has been appointed as vice-president, home decor at Urban Ladder.

Zoho buys into Zentron Labs

Zoho Corp, a home-bred cloud-based business operating systems company, has picked up a minority stake in Bengaluru-based Zentron Labs for an undisclosed amount, sources said. Set up in 2012 by Krishnan Ramabadran and Ramgopal Vallath, Zentron provides automation systems for processes that require visual checking. For example, AppleTron, a post-harvest solution developed by the company, assists in visual checking of apples ready to be packaged and sold, using high-speed Infrared technology and machine-learning algorithms.

SysCloud raises $2.5 million

US- and Chennai-based SysCloud, Inc., which provides data backup and disaster recovery solutions to enterprises, has secured $2.5 million in Series A round of funding led by Inventus Capital Partners, with participation from existing investor Kae Capital. The company plans to use the funds to grow its sales and accelerating development for product innovation, the company stated.

Kochi start-up raises $50,000

A 'smart' microwave oven built by a campus start-up at the Startup Village in Kalamassery has met its crowd-funding target of $500,00 in just six days of the campaign's launch, and is now cruising towards its stretch goal of $150,000.

Sector Qube, founded by a group of engineering students three years ago, began the funding campaign for their flagship product MAID (Make All Incredible Dishes) on Kickstarter on October 29. Chief Executive Officer Nibu Alias said they had set a stretch goal of $150,000 for their backers but hope to raise around $200,000 by December 3.