During the week of November 4 to 9, 2024, the Indian startup ecosystem was witness to strong funding activity wherein 25 startups raised about $138.7 million. This week’s funding was comprised of three growth-stage deals as well as 20 early-stage investments. However, two startups preferred not to go public with their transaction details. Compared with the last week, it is completely a different story as the funding amount was somewhere around $362 million for 13 startups.
PC: Orissa POST
Growth-Stage Highlights
Notable growth-stage deals include Easy Home Finance raising $35 million to boost its home financing solutions. MODIFI also emerged as a global leader in B2B Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services and was able to raise $15 million. Lastly, Mihup received its $5.92 million in focus on conversation intelligence during these times, highlighting the diversity of investor interests in today’s shifting tech landscape.
Early-Stage Funding Acceleration
20 early-stage startups collectively raised $82.78 million 20 early-stage startups collectively raised $82.78 million. Tech ventures that led the list include an enterprise integration platform called UnifyApps, BoldFit, a D2C fitness startup; deep-tech robotics firm, CynLr; dronetech company, Marut Drones; and backpacker hostel chain, The Hosteller. This was just one of the many diverse sectors to pique investor interest this week.
Sectors and Cities Insights
Bengaluru and the Delhi-NCR region led the fundings at seven deals each in the two cities. Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata followed. The same was also seen across sectors, which witnessed a good amount of interest from investors. Fintech, SaaS, and AI started the charge and nabbed three deals each. Other sectors like deep tech, EV, and health tech also found a reasonable amount of interest from investors.
Funding Trends and Comparisons
The funding of the current week stands at a drastic 61.7% in comparison to the funding pulled together for the previous week. On average, of the last eight weeks, the total funding raised has averaged around $296.87 million. That’s about 27 deals per week, which overall reflects a rather volatile funding climate as investors rebalance their strategies on changing market conditions.
Fund Launches and Mergers
Besides the rounds, there were some significant fund launches that included Northern Arc Capital to a Climate Fund, aggregating $65 million for climate finance projects and Inflexor Ventures closing the first fund at Rs 350 crore focused on early-stage investments in varied sectors.
An additional frequent theme this week were mergers and acquisitions: Nivesh acquired the wealth tech firm Wealthzi, and Veefin has captured a majority stake in Gen AI startup Walnut. Astrology platform Vedvaani was acquired by another M&A newcomer, BrahmVeda, reflecting consolidation within the startup sector itself.
Staffing Changes and Layoffs
This was a big week in terms of personnel moves, too. Notably, Truecaller named Rishit Jhunjhunwala as its CEO, while Deepak Lamba joined The Fashion Entrepreneur Fund and Shubbam Sharma came on board at Pepperfry. There were layoffs reported at 1% Club, while Freshworks began a layoff process and reduced its strength by 13 percent to cut down costs.
In summary, November 4 to 9 was a week of dynamic funding for Indian startups, which was growth and early stages. Though the total funding went down compared to the previous week, strategic acquisitions along with notable fund launches is a reflection that this ecosystem is indeed resilient as well as adaptive for future times to come. Market watchers will keenly wait for how trends play out in weeks to come.
