The online group deals in India space has witnessed a sudden flurry of activity over the past couple of weeks: two acquisitions and one funding. Several group deal websites have mushroomed in India over the past six months, mirroring, the launch of local YouTube clones three years ago, or more recently, the local business listings/search space. Group-deals, rather group-buying sites, aggregate buyers eying the same deal from a merchant, thus giving the merchant scale in terms of sales, and offering the customers a discount. Discounts can be as high as 80% on the maximum retail price. The three deals have been announced in the last two weeks: - Deals and You: a venture from Group Buying Global AG (promoted by Dr.Klaus Hommels & Oliver Jung) and Harish Bahl of Smile Interactive, acquired group deals startup WanaMo.com, a few months after its launch; our sense is that, given that it was a rather young business and (we assume) a limited user base, it was acquired for the team, and having a product and merchant relationships that would reduce time to market. Bahl and Group Buying Global also own another premium deals business - FashionAndYou.com. - Taggle: A group buying startup founded by John Kuruvilla is believed to have received a commitment of $8.75 million in funding, based on certain milestones, from Greylock Partners and Battery Ventures. Reports in VCCircle and Pluggd.in. Remember that Battery Ventures recently invested in group buying company GroupOn, a round funding that valued the company at $1…
