In a significant development for the Indian startup ecosystem, startups in the country have together raised over $1 Bn in the month of July this year. Entrackr reported how this highlights the Indian startup sector’s resilience and growth story amidst a tough global economic scenario.
PC: Zee Business
Data collated by TheKredible shows that Indian startups raised a total of $1.03 bn across 126 deals in the month ended July. These included 28 investment deals in the growth stage and amount to $725 million, and 72 early-stage deals amounting to $311.83 million. Apart from these, there were 26 other undisclosed transactions, largely in the early-stage segment. This funding comes on the top of a promising first half of the year and took the momentum zip from June, which posted a big spike-led on the back of significant rounds from companies like Zepto, Flipkart, PharmEasy, and Lenskart.
The Indian government recently said it shall abolish the angel tax, which has been viewed to be one development that shall work to the advantage of startups in the funding environment of the country. The report underlines the fact that though funding backed off the previous month’s $1.93, it stands as the highest ever in the month of July for the last three years. The monthly total takes the cumulative for the first seven months of 2024 to $8 billion, positioning the ecosystem closer than ever before to breaching the $11 billion figure for all of 2023.
Leading investments in July were growth rounds for Purplle and Rapido, both at $120 million. Rapido’s round catapulted it into the unicorn club, making it the third firm, this year, to reach a billion-dollar valuation in 2024. Other significant deals this past week were in Oyo’s $50 million, Urban Company, Navi, Matter, and Dezerv. Noteworthy is that Oyo watched its company valuation significantly shrink; Navi raised the funding through secondary transactions; Urban Company debt-funded its way to the capital.
The round was topped up by Unimech Aerospace in the early stage at $30 million. BluPine, Simple Energy, Newme, and Stable Money also came in with strong contributions of $28.8 million, $20 million, $18 million, and $15 million, respectively. UptimeAI, Immuneel Therapeutics, Namma Yatri, Meragi, Seeds Fincap, among others, were contributors as well.
There were also 17 buyout deals during the month, with significant deals being Nazara Technologies acquiring a 48.42% stake in Paper Boat Apps and Accenture buying Excelmax Technologies. According to the report, amongst all Indian cities, the maximum number of funding deals was struck by the country’s startup hub, Bengaluru. Delhi-NCR and Mumbai followed with 33 and 24 deals, respectively. And segment-wise, it was the fintech startups that led from the front, followed by e-commerce/sales and SaaS.
Besides, it also witnessed mass ESOP buyback programs from Adda247 and Swiggy, with companies reiterating that now it has become a trend to reward employees in terms of equity monetization in startups. But at the other end, the scenario was pretty grim as well, with new job losses at Unacademy and Waycool and startups shutting down –for instance, Koo, Trumigo, and Bluelearn.
By and large, July 2024 did turn out to be another action-packed month for Indian startups, literally signaling all the opportunities and disruptions in the ecosystem.
