From July 29 to August 3, 2024, the funding activities were at a high note in the Indian startup ecosystem. Some 32 startups raised around $341 million during this period. Compared to the previous week, where 22 startups raised $113.39 million, things moved pretty fast. It has seen a mixture of growth-stage and early-stage deals; some key acquisitions and strategic movements have happened in the industry.
PC: TechCrunch
Deals At Growth-Stage Level
Of the growth-stage deals, six startups raised a total of $216.8 million. At the top of the table was mobility startup Rapido, raising $120 million in a unicorn round. This was followed by fintech firm Navi at $38 million. Other key investments included NBFC Clix Capital; Trade financing startup Vayana Network also drew $20.5 million; fintech firm BharatPe fetched $10 million; and sportstech company KheloMore fetched $2 million.
Deals At Early-Stage Level
In the early-stage category, 22 startups raised a total of $124.24 million. The table was led by renewable energy services company BluPine, followed by two EV startups: Simple Energy and Kinetic Green. Meragi, a wedding services company, and specialty chemicals platform Scimplifyare also contributed significantly to this round. Another 4 startups, BoldFit, Game Theory, Cogniquest, and Vitra.ai, did not disclose their funding amounts.
Deals At City and Segment-Wise Level
Bengaluru topped the list with the number of funding deals raised by different startups reaching 16, followed by Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Jaipur, Pune, Bicholim, and Surat. Now, looking segment-wise, it was fintech with six deals, followed by SaaS, AI, e-commerce, and EV startups.
Deals At Series-Wise Level
The highest number of deals was for Series A funding, which saw the closure of 11 deals in a week. This was followed by seven pre-Series-A, five Seed, two pre-Seed, and two Debt. Other notable mentions were funding rounds for Angel, Series B, Series C, Series D, and Series E.
The Trend For Week-on-Week Funding
On a week-on-week funding trend, this turned out to be an increase of a whopping 200 percent, having mobilized $341.04 million against $113.39 million in the week before. The average funding in the past eight weeks came in at about $316.78 million, while the number of deals stood at an average of 29 every week.
Fund Launches
It announced its fourth fund with a potential corpus of Rs 2,500 crores and invested in companies like Atomberg, BigBasket, and BlueStone. Gemba Capital also announced the expansion of its portfolio with a second fund of up to Rs 250 crore.
Key Hirings and Departures
Hero Vired, the online education platform of the Hero Group, appointed Prakhar Kasar as its new CEO. CoinDCX elevated Mridul Gupta to founding partner. The e-commerce company Meesho onboarded four independent directors — Hari S Bhartia, Kalpana Morparia, Rohit Bhagat and Surojit Chatterjee. On the other hand, Metadome.ai cofounder and chief revenue officer Prashant Sinha announced his exit from the firm.
Mergers and Acquisition
Infibeam Avenues acquired the majority stake in Rediff.com, and SaveDesk acquired a majority stake in Bengaluru-based fintech startup Fairexpay. Nazara Technologies acquired the intellectual property rights of the popular mobile game “Ultimate Teen Patti”.
Shutdowns
Apollo Tyres scrapped its doorstep car service initiative, Trumigo, within six months of its launch due to lack of traction in customers and stiff competition. CarTrade decided to shut down its used car retail segment (C2B) after acquiring last year the business of OLX India, as it wanted to focus on the core classifieds business.
Potential Deals
Raise Financial Services, the parent company of Dhan, the stock trading platform, is discussing raising about $100 million in its next round and, as a result, could see its valuation grow to around $1.2-1.5 billion. Another fintech player, M2P Fintech, is on the cusp of completing an $80 million funding round at a $900 million valuation.
Terminal Value, New Launches, and Financial Results
While Delhivery is mulling a dark store for e-commerce players, how Zomato is eyeing the District App is to bring dining out, events, and ticketing. And, on the financial results front in this past week, we saw Delhivery turn profitable with Rs 52 Cr PAT in Q1 FY25, Infibeam Avenue reporting 43% growth in PAT, Zomato with over a $25 billion market cap posting Rs 253 Cr profits in Q1 FY25, among others.
In a nutshell, massive funding activities, such as strategic acquisitions and key executive movements, made it quite an eventful week for the Indian startup ecosystem.
