Indian Startup Funding and Acquisitions: Highlights from November 2-7

This week, Indian startups collectively raised $258.1 million through three growth-stage deals and 17 early-stage deals, including two undisclosed rounds. Additionally, there were nine key appointments, one departure, two fund launches, an ESOP buyback, and an acquisition. Comparatively, 28 startups raised around $115 million in the previous week.Growth-stage startups raised $190.5 million via three deals this week. The jewellery brand GIVA was at the forefront, securing $100 million, backed by Multiples Alternate Asset Management. Following this, the Bengaluru-based consumer AI and entertainment firm EloElo Group raised $80 million in a Series C round, led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal. Pune’s Peppermint Robotics raised Rs 100 crore (approximately $10.5 million) in a Pre-Series B round, driven by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners.Early-stage startups amassed $67.6 million through 17 deals this week. Pune’s health-tech startup Clinics On Cloud led with a $12.5 million Series A round from Dubai investors through Model42, powered by Enlightened Minds Investments. Bengaluru’s specialty chemicals startup altM followed with a $10.3 million Series A round led by Rainmatter by Zerodha and Mela Ventures. AI-driven clean energy platform Two Point O Capital (TW.O) secured $10 million in a round led by Transition Venture Capital, while wealthtech platform PowerUp Money also raised $10 million, led by Flourish Ventures, with participation from existing investors like Peak XV Partners, Accel, and Blume Ventures. Other startups that received funding this week included spacetech venture Cosmoserve Space, defence tech firm Axial Aero, AI-enabled autonomous delivery robot producer Ottonomy, biotechnology company Venomics AI, and QSR venture The Croffle Guys, among others.Bengaluru led in startup funding with six deals this week, followed by Delhi-NCR and Mumbai, each with five deals. Pune, Hyderabad, and Gandhinagar also experienced funding activity this week. E-commerce and AI startups topped sector-wise funding with three deals each, accompanied by healthtech, manufacturing, fintech, foodtech, and gaming, which each had two deals. Robotics, spacetech, and deeptech startups also secured funding during the week.Seed rounds dominated funding activity with eight deals, followed closely by Series A and pre-seed rounds, which had four and three deals respectively. Series C, pre-Series B, pre-Series A, and angel rounds also saw notable activity this week.On a weekly comparison, startup funding more than doubled to $258.1 million from $115 million raised the previous week. The average weekly funding over the last eight weeks was around $198 million across 23 deals.Logistics firm Porter recently appointed Gaurav Jain as the chief financial officer (CFO). Additionally, Shubham Gupta and Mohit Rathi have been elevated to chief technology officer (CTO) and chief marketing officer (CMO), respectively. Enterprise AI and analytics company MathCo has added Vijay Raj to its advisory board. Avendus has appointed Sumit Agarwal as managing director and head of equity corporate finance, while Fulcrum Digital welcomed Latha Nathan as senior vice president of India delivery operations. UiPath has also named Yashdeep Vaishnav as its country manager for India. Fireside Ventures co-founder and partner Vinay Singh will be leaving the firm after nearly a decade, planning to pursue opportunities in agentic commerce.Daksham Growth Ventures (DGV) has completed the first close of its inaugural consumer-focused fund, DGV Fund I, raising Rs 125 crore. Meanwhile, the private equity fund ValueQuest Tristar Fund, focused on India’s advanced manufacturing sector across aerospace, defence, precision engineering, and energy transition, has secured over Rs 2,100 crore in investor commitments within 15 months of its first close, successfully surpassing its target.Provision Labs, founded by Anjali Sardana, has acquired Mumbai-based hardware startup Basilisk Industries for an undisclosed amount. Basilisk’s founder Shourya Watwani will lead Provision’s hardware initiatives and develop in-house post-processing models.Talent mobility platform Leverage Edu has initiated its third ESOP buyback programme, granting stock options to an additional 100 employees, elevating the share of the workforce with equity in the company to 23%. The programme allows employees to cash out on a portion of their vested options, following previous buybacks in June 2022 and June 2024.▪️ Cashfree unveils Checkout for Agents, enabling AI agents to facilitate seamless payments at checkout. Cashfree, an AI-oriented payments platform, has released Checkout for Agents, becoming the first Indian payments provider to incorporate the WebMCP standard into its checkout process. This feature allows AI agents to process transactions on behalf of consumers and is compatible across Cashfree’s hosted checkout, payment forms, and payment links, without any need for merchants to adjust their existing setups. WebMCP enables AI agents to interact with websites through specified actions, potentially decreasing token consumption during checkout by over 40%.▪️ super.money broadens financial services with digital gold offerings, providing 3% guaranteed cashback on purchases leading up to Dhanteras. super.money, a fintech platform aimed at Gen Z, has introduced 24-karat digital gold on its app ahead of Dhanteras, diversifying beyond its UPI payment services. Customers can acquire gold from Rs 10 and receive an assured 3% cashback with each purchase. This offering, managed through SafeGold, allows users to buy and trade gold via UPI without incurring making or storage fees. The cashback is limited to Rs 9,000 per user each month, with a purchase cap of Rs 50,000.▪️ InMobi, in collaboration with BMRCL, signs MoU to support sustainable urban mobility at Ibbaluru Metro Station. InMobi has entered into a 30-year contract with Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) to gain naming rights for the Ibbaluru Metro Station in Bengaluru. Under this contract, the company will pay Rs 65 crore, excluding GST, and the station will be renamed InMobi Ibbaluru Metro Station.▪️ Procol is set to launch Clara 2.0, a multi-agent source-to-pay platform at the Gartner IT Symposium in Kochi. Procol’s Clara 2.0 features specialised AI agents for procurement and finance, automating workflows for purchasing, sourcing, supplier risk assessment, spend management, and invoice processing. The platform seamlessly integrates with existing ERP systems through two-way data synchronisation, helping to reduce procurement cycle durations by up to 80% across Procol’s diverse customer base.▪️ Scripbox is preparing to transition into a public company ahead of its IPO plans. The Bengaluru-based wealthtech startup Scripbox has approved the transformation into a public limited company, indicating steps towards a possible IPO. Regulatory documents accessed by Startup Superb confirm that the board has consented to change its name from Scripbox Wealth Managers Private Limited to Scripbox Wealth Managers Limited. The anticipated IPO will include a fresh issuance of equity shares and an offer for sale (OFS) from current shareholders.▪️ Razorpay attains SEBI approval for its IPO. The fintech unicorn Razorpay has received SEBI approval for its proposed IPO, as per informed sources. The Bengaluru-based firm had submitted its DRHP confidentially in June 2026 and aims to raise between Rs 5,500-6,500 crore at an estimated valuation of $5 billion (Rs 49,000-50,000 crore). They are expected to file their final IPO documentation before March 2027.▪️ TVS maintains its lead in the electric two-wheeler market for October; Ather increases by 3%, while Ola sees a decline of 10%. India recorded 2,23,847 registrations for electric two-wheelers in October, up from 2,08,705 units in September, based on Vahan data. TVS Motor upheld its leading position with 60,429 registrations, capturing a 27% market share, followed by Bajaj Auto with 49,067 units and a 21.92% share. Ather Energy secured third place with 31,796 registrations, a 2.75% increase month-on-month, while Hero MotoCorp recorded 29,901 units, showing a 22.34% rise. Ola Electric held fifth position with 12,096 registrations, reflecting a 10.12% decrease from September, marking it as the sole player among the top five to exhibit a monthly decline.▪️ UPI achieves record 25.47 billion transactions in October, with daily value exceeding Rs 1 lakh crore. UPI recorded an unprecedented 25.47 billion transactions valued at Rs 31.53 lakh crore in October 2026, according to NPCI data. Transaction volume surged by 5.8% month-on-month from 24.07 billion in September, while transaction value increased by 7.4% compared to Rs 29.37 lakh crore. On a yearly basis, volume has grown by 23% and value by 16%. Daily averages indicated that UPI facilitated 822 million transactions worth Rs 1.02 lakh crore in October, contrasting with 802 million transactions worth Rs 97,913 crore in September.▪️ Angel One surpasses Zerodha to become the second-largest broker; Groww garners over 3 lakh clients in October. Angel One has overtaken Zerodha to establish itself as India’s second-largest stockbroker in October 2026, acquiring approximately 2.43 lakh active clients that month. At the same time, Groww continued to lead with more than 1.37 crore active clients, while discount broking platform Sahi experienced the fastest monthly growth among the top 20 brokers.