STARTUP UNICORNS IN INDIA
Indian fintech sector sees 59% drop in funding in H1 2024, remains among top three globally
The fintech sector saw a nearly 60% slump in funding for the first six months of 2024. Startups in the space raised $795 million during this period, as against $1.9 billion in the first half of 2023.
Fintech sector will dominate future Unicorns at USD 58 billion: Hurun report
The total worth of India's future unicorns will stand at USD 58 billion, an increase of 1.2 per cent as compared to last year. Fintech sector leads with the highest number of companies that can become Unicorns in future.
Peak XV Partners most active investor in India: Hurun report
Peak XV is the most active investor in Indian startups with investments in 47 entities, according to the ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2024. Accel follows Peak XV with investments in 25 companies poised to become unicorns.
Unicorn count may rise to 152 in 5 years with valuation over $1 billion
According to the ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2024, India is poised to witness the addition of at least 152 new unicorns (startups valued over $1 billion) from 31 cities over the next 3-5 years. This growth would expand the current count of 67 unicorns. Throughout the year, there has been notable activity in the future unicorn list, with 25 startups dropping off. Additionally, 12 companies were downgraded from gazelle status to cheetah, while 10 moved up from cheetah to gazelle.
Indian tech startup funding logs slight uptick at $4.1 billion in H1
Indian tech startups raised USD 4.1 billion in H1 2024, 4% higher than H2 2023, remaining fourth-highest funded country globally. Insights from Tracxn report highlighted funding trends and volumes in the Indian tech startup landscape.
Silicon Valley VC fund General Catalyst acquires Venture Highway; will deploy $1 billion in India
Venture capital fund General Catalyst is acquiring India-focussed early-stage investor Venture Highway to strengthen its India presence. As part of this move, Venture Highway—which has backed unicorns like Meesho and Moglix—will cease to exist and will transition into General Catalyst India. This comes in the backdrop of a larger reset in the global venture capital industry after the exuberance of the pandemic years.
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Early-stage VC Z21 Ventures planning $40 million second fund
Z21 Ventures, an early-stage investment firm focusing on the India-US corridor, has fully deployed its first $5-million fund and is gearing up to launch a $40 million second fund. The firm, founded in 2022 by Abhinav Shashank and Raj Shekhar Singh, targets enterprise software and hardware startups with investments ranging from $100,000 to $150,000, backed by a community of Indian-origin technology executives like Google, Amazon, and Meta.
Scoop: DST Global, Lightspeed, others may join Zepto’s financing round valuing it at about $3 billion
Investors are bullish about the company, lured by the growing adoption of ultra-fast delivery platforms despite the high cash burn that typically accompanies these kinds of good-for-consumer businesses.
Insurtech startup Finsall raises Rs 15 crore from Unicorn India Ventures, Seafund
Finsall, a Bengaluru-based insurtech startup, raised Rs 15 crore in bridge funding led by Unicorn India Ventures and Seafund. The funds will be used to establish a non-banking finance company for scaling lending operations and enhancing partnerships with insurers and lenders.
Top startup & tech stories this week
Welcome to a brand new edition of ETtech Unwrapped – our weekend newsletter. The week was packed with important stories broken by our reporters. Here’s a recap if you missed these stories.
Bluestone's unicorn round; Sorin’s Rs 1,350-crore fund
Happy Wednesday! Omnichannel jewellery startup Bluestone is nearing unicorn status with a potential $100-million pre-IPO investment. More on this in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.
Bluestone may turn unicorn in pre-IPO funding round
This funding round will more than double ominchannel jewellery retailer Bluestone's valuation from around $450 million in September 2023. Bengaluru-based Bluestone’s pre-IPO round is seeing interest from new and existing investors, encouraged by the Tata Group’s CaratLane deal where Titan bought out the founder’s (Mithun Sacheti) stake last year.
Zypp Electric raises $15 million from Japanese firm Eneos for India expansion
Zypp Electric confirmed funding from Eneos as part of a larger $40 million round. Existing investors like 9unicorns and IAN also participated in the fundraising. The company's revenue increased threefold to Rs 325 crore in 2023-24.
Lesson for entrepreneurs: What are the common mistakes startup founders make and how to avoid them?
India has the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, with 1.17 lakh entities (DPIIT), nearly 1,710 venture capital funds, 794 accelerators and incubators (Tracxn), and several government initiatives like Startup India. Despite this fervour and support, financial and otherwise, the startup journey is extremely difficult.ET Wealth lists the typical mistakes most founders make and tell you how to tackle these
Ghar Wapsi, a start up the right path
India's regulatory regime has also facilitated shifts in both directions. Outbound investments were made easier by regulators clarifying what constitutes bona fide business when a startup intends to relocate abroad. Inbound investments also face more clarity over transfer of assets, apart from overall lower sectoral restrictions on foreign investments.
Startup unicorns take to GenAI as older companies dither
A new study by consulting firm EY has found that innovation continued at a strong pace in 2024 but different organisations are at different stages of adoption when it comes to GenAI use cases
VC funding for women-led startups declined in 2023: report
A new report reveals a decline in VC funding for women-led businesses in India. According to WinPe, a non-profit organisation focused on gender diversity in private equity, the share of funding going to female founders dropped to just 9.3% in 2023, compared to 14.7% in 2021.
100Unicorns launches second fund, eyes $200-million target
The fund is looking to support more than 200 startups across sectors like SaaS, direct-to-consumer (D2C), fintech, electric vehicles (EV), energy, defence and healthcare. It aims to announce its first close by November, with a target amount of $100 million.
Unicorn sightings slump; Tata’s chip exports
Happy Tuesday! Despite deal activity in late-stage startups showing signs of a revival, new unicorns aren’t being birthed. This and more in today’s edition of ETtech Morning Dispatch.
Unicorn sightings become rare as VCs shun that leap of faith
Investors are going back to the same list of startups they have already backed to write bigger cheques leading to new unicorn sightings becoming rare. Only Perfios and Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim AI have become unicorns so far in 2024, and the number was the same for the whole of 2023.
Good Capital plans to invest $25 million in Indian AI startups this fiscal
Good Capital plans to invest USD 25 million in Indian AI startups from the USD 50 million Fund II by 2027. The focus includes cleantech, e-commerce, edtech, healthtech, SaaS, deeptech, and utilizing intermediaries for low acquisition costs.
Innovaccer’s new funding round; ONDC’s logistics push
Happy Thursday! SaaS startup Innovaccer is in discussions to raise funding at a flat valuation of $3 billion. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.
Paediatric health startup Butterfly Learnings raises Rs 32 crore led by Insitor
Butterfly Learnings plans to use the funds to “extend its reach across multiple states and cities in India through a 200-center network,” it said in a statement. Butterfly Learnings had raised $2 million in its 2022 seed funding round.
Top Indian unicorns continue to add talent despite funding, growth challenges
Data from top 15 unicorns by talent movements– including the likes of BigBasket, Delhivery, Flipkart, IndiaMART, Meesho, Ola, PhonePe, Swiggy, Udaan, Zoho, Zomato - showed that over the last 12 months, this cohort of firms let go 33,000 employees but hired 58,000, to record a 25,000 net headcount growth.
Startup Mahakumbh: Indian youth becoming job creators, says PM Modi
Speaking at the Startup Mahakumbh at Bharat Mandapam, Modi said from less than 100 startups in 2014, India now has 1.25 lakh registered startups.
India’s startup landscape: Funding winter continues as investment plummets
A new report brings out the continuing downward trend in funding, as investors remain more cautious and selective, even as India remained the fourth largest venture market in the world in 2023.
SaaS fintech startup Perfios secures $80 million from TVG, attains unicorn valuation
Warburg Pincus-backed Perfios is considering an initial public offering (IPO) that could raise about $500 million in India at a potential valuation of $2 billion. It is also chalking out plans to enter the US and European markets in 2024.
India needs more startups in agriculture space, says CEO of Deshpande Startups
The CEO of incubator Deshpande Startups, Karthik Sankaran, says they have provided mentorship and financial support to over 400 startups, and the focus is primarily for those solving for rural India.
ETtech Deals Digest: Startup funding nearly doubles to $94 million this week
The most significant amount of capital raised in the week was in early-stage funding, at about $67 million, accounting for 71.4% of the overall deal value. This was followed by $15 million in the late stage, commanding 16%.
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