Highlights
Funding Overview
Over the past week, nine Indian startups successfully acquired approximately $47.7 million in funding. This includes one significant growth-stage deal and six early-stage deals, while two startups opted not to disclose their funding amounts.
In the previous week, a total of 24 startups at various stages raised around $192 million.
Growth-Stage Deals
Among the growth-stage transactions, EPACK, a provider of turnkey solutions for pre-engineered buildings, raised $25 million.
Early-Stage Deals
Six early-stage startups obtained a combined total of $27.7 million in funding this week. Leading this group was Univest, a provider of expert stock trading advice, followed by:
- Mindgrove – A fabless semiconductor design startup.
- Sparkl Edventure – An online tutoring platform.
- Proxgy – An IoT innovator.
- SustVest – A sustainable investment platform.
Meanwhile, Naxatra Labs, an electric vehicle startup, and M37Labs, an AI as a service provider, also secured funding but did not disclose specific amounts.
City and Segment Breakdown
In terms of geographical distribution, startups based in Delhi-NCR led with four deals, followed by Bengaluru, Chennai, and Ahmedabad.
Segment-wise, Fintech startups topped the list with two deals, while Proptech, Semiconductor, Edtech, IoT, and Agritech followed closely.
Series-wise Deals
This week saw an equal number of deals in Series A and Seed funding, with three deals each, followed by Series C, pre-Series A, and pre-Seed deals.
Funding Trends
Startup funding experienced a significant decline of 75.12% this week, totalling $47.7 million compared to the approximately $191.71 million raised in the previous week.
The average funding over the last eight weeks has been about $286.79 million, with 24 deals occurring weekly.
Key Personnel Changes
This week, the startup ecosystem observed five notable appointments:
- Foundit appointed Pranay Kale, Anupama Bhimrajka, and Tanesh Arora to various roles.
- Evocus welcomed Pramod Joshi as the Head of Retail Sales and Export.
- Groyyo promoted Nitin Jain to Co-founder.
In related news, Vijay Agicha, Chief Investment Officer of PayU, resigned, alongside Anshul Khandelwal (CMO) and Suvonil Chatterjee (CTPO) from Ola Electric.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Singapore-based Xcelerate, an operating and investment platform, acquired a stake in Carisma Solutions, a provider of knowledge-driven business services. Additionally, TVS Motor purchased majority stakes in DriveX Mobility for $11.5 million.
New Partnerships and Launches
- Rebel Foods‘ Eat Sure introduced a multi-restaurant group ordering feature.
- DPIIT collaborated with boAt to enhance support for D2C and manufacturing startups.
- Ola Electric launched 3,200 new stores along with the debut of the Ola S1 Pro Sona.
Potential Deals
- Leap India, a logistics firm, aims to raise $63 million led by KKR.
- Shiprocket, a logistics SaaS unicorn, plans to raise $26 million.
- Motilal Oswal intends to invest Rs 100 crore in Captain Fresh.
Financial Results for the Week
- Exotel reported flat growth in FY24, with losses reduced by 61%.
- ShopKirana faced challenges in scaling in FY24 but narrowed its losses by 30%.
- LEAD achieved a revenue milestone of Rs 350 crore in FY24, cutting losses by 56%.
- Simplilearn reduced its losses by 56% in FY24, though revenue growth has stalled.
- Curefoods reported Rs 635 crore in revenue for FY24, halving its losses.
- Mintifi posted Rs 92 crore in PAT on Rs 384 crore in revenue for FY24.
News Highlights This Week
- IndiQube, backed by WestBridge Capital, filed a DRHP for an Rs 850 crore IPO.
- Greaves Electric, the parent company of Ampere, filed a DRHP for a Rs 1,000 crore IPO.
- Zomato became the first Indian startup to enter the Sensex 30.
- The CCPA is investigating ride-hailing companies for differential pricing practices.
- Piyush Goyal announced that Indian startups have created over 1.6 million jobs in the country.
- The RBI has permitted third-party UPI apps to process payments from PPI wallets.
- More than 73,000 Indian startups have at least one woman director.
