PC: Entrackr
The Indian startup landscape remains fluid at best. Last week was no different-from funding to acquisition, appointment of key personnel, and market insights.
Here’s an attempt to sum up the major goings-on in Indian startups in this period of fluidity:
Funding Insights:
Growth-stage deals:
Waycool secured $12 million in debt funding in the form of an agriculture supply chain company.
- Basic Home Loan: Fintech startup Basic Home Loan raised $10.6 million.
- Troo Good and True Balance: Troo Good and lending startup True Balance raised $8.6 million and $2.38 million in funding, respectively.
Early-Stage Deals:
- Chemical manufacturing platform Mstack led early-stage funding with significant investments.
- Str8bat, Furnishka, LISSUN, ZEVO: Early-stage funding deals have been confirmed by sport tech platform Str8bat, Furniture Retailer Furnishka, mental health startup LISSUN and Tech-enabled EV mobility platform ZEVO.
City and Segment-Wise Distribution:
City-Wise Deals: Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR-based startups have followed home 7 deals each in hand followed by Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
Segment-Wise Deals: Healthtech follows at the top with 5 deals, followed by E-commerce, Fintech, Aerospace, Agritech, Chemicals and Dronetech startups.
Series-Wise Distribution:
There were 7 seed funding deals, followed by 5 pre-Series A, 5 Series A, 2 Debt, and 2 Series B deals.
Weekly Funding Trends:
- Startup funding declined by 80% to $92.63 million from $461 million in the preceding week.
- Overall average weekly funding for the eight weeks saw it at approximately $395.36 million with an average of 27 deals per week.
Fund Launches:
- ThinKuvate: Singapore-based angel investment network ThinKuvate has sealed the first close of its India fund at Rs 25 crore.
- Trillion Dollar Ventures: Venture capital firm Trillion Dollar Ventures opened the second fund with a total corpus of Rs 50 crore to aid early-stage tech startups in the country.
Key Hirings and Departures:
Some of the notable people who joined this week are Vishal Mehta at Rediff.com, Nijil George at MediBuddy, Gaurav Sharma at Ferns N Petals, and Samantha Prabhu at Secret Alchemist.
Last week, Siddharth Mahanot from Indifi and OLA Electric’s compliance officer left the company.
M&A:
– Adda 247, Pluckk, Capital IQ, UST: Adda 247 acquired PrepInsta; Pluckk acquired Upnourish; Karman Drones was acquired by Capital IQ; and UST acquired Information Services Group’s automation unit.
Shutdown:
– Greenikk: Agritech startup Greenikk decides to shut operations citing funding constraints and unfavorable market conditions.
Launches and Partnerships:-
- Uber ties up with Shadowfax for two-wheeler fleet addition.
- Swiggy introduces ‘Bolt’, a 10-minute food delivery app
- PhonePe partners with Jar to offer daily savings on digital gold.
Potential Deals:
- InCred Capital: Raises $50 million from family offices.
- FermionIC Design: The semiconductor startup will raise $6 million.
Financial Results Highlights:
CRED, Minimalist, Classplus, Josh Talks, Navi, Groww: Updates on the financial performances from these startups with respect to revenue growth, profit margins, and some operations inputs
News Flash:
Upstox, Ola Electric, UPI transactions, Titan Capital, BharatPe, Invesco, Mamaearth, Peak XV Partners, DevX, Swiggy’s IPO, CarDekho, and Blackstone’s focus on fund in India.
In conclusion, recent events in the Indian startup ecosystem have put forth how the landscape is fast evolving through funding fluctuations, strategic partnerships, expanding the market, and financial performance milestones. Shutdowns and failures seem to be irrelevant to the growth story of startups as it presents resilience and innovation put forth by such ventures as they shape up the future Indian startup ecosystem. Stay tuned for more updates and insights from the vibrant world of Indian startups.
