Indian Startups Raise $187.2 Million This Week
This week, Indian startups have successfully raised approximately $187.2 million, which consists of 4 growth-stage and 13 early-stage deals alongside an undisclosed deal. In comparison, 19 startups had garnered around $47 million in funding the previous week.
Growth-stage Deals
Growth-stage startups achieved a total of $126 million across four different deals, led by the quick home services platform Snabbit, which secured $56 million in a Series D funding round from Susquehanna VC, Mirae Asset Venture Investments, and Bertelsmann India Investments. Following this, Sahi raised $33 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel, including participation from Elevation Capital.
Kimbal Technologies, known for its smart grid solutions, raised $22 million (Rs 210 crore) in a Series B round led by GEF Capital Partners. Additionally, Battery Smart successfully obtained $15 million in debt financing from Mirova, an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers.
Early-stage Deals
Early-stage startups raised Rs 510 crore across 13 deals this week, led by Oolka, which secured Rs 130 crore in a Series A round driven by Accel with contributions from Lightspeed and Z47. HyugaLife also raised Rs 100 crore in a Series A funding round led by IvyCap Ventures.
Fintech startup Novio gathered Rs 100 crore ($10.5 million) in a Series A funding round, led by Cornerstone Ventures. AI-driven supply chain optimization startup Mojro Technologies raised $5.5 million in a Series A funding effort. Other early-stage firms such as fintech company Sahamati, electro-optics firm Optimized Electrotech, sports-tech companies SportVot, contemporary ethnic wear brand House of Chikankari, deep-tech firm Ctruh, and four additional companies also secured funding this week.
City and Segment-wise Deals
Bengaluru and Mumbai led the deal count by city, each recording six deals, while Delhi-NCR saw four deals. Chennai and Ahmedabad also had activity this week.
In terms of segments, fintech startups topped the funding landscape with four deals, while gaming, e-commerce, and deep-tech startups each had two deals. Additionally, home services, energy, EV, SaaS, and other sectors also reported funding.
Series-wise Deals
Series A rounds dominated the week with six deals, trailed by five seed deals, and one deal each in Series A, pre-seed, pre-Series B, and Series B categories.
Week-on-Week Funding Trend
Startup funding surged fourfold on a weekly basis to reach $187.21 million, compared to roughly $47 million raised in the previous week. The average funding over the past eight weeks is about $229.68 million, translating to 23 deals per week.
Key Hirings and Departures
Significant leadership movements this week include Perfios appointing Veena Rao as COO responsible for global operations. Flipkart promoted Minutes head Kunal Gupta to Senior Vice President and Cleartrip’s Gaurav Patwari to Vice President. Additionally, Fractal Analytics enhanced its AI leadership by naming Kunal Jain as head of AI workforce transformation, Suraj Amonkar as chief AI research officer, and Matthew Gennone as chief commercial officer and CEO of Cogentiq.
Noteworthy departures were also reported, including Cars24 experiencing multiple senior exits. Co-founder Gajendra Jangid departed, and co-founder and COO Mehul Agrawal stepped back from his role after over a decade. Fractal Analytics disclosed the exit of its chief growth officer Shailendra Pratap Singh for personal reasons. Furthermore, Ujjwal Jain, who served as CEO of PhonePe’s stockbroking platform Share.Market, exited after four years, while TBO Tek COO Deepak Khanna also left after close to two decades.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Pine Labs has acquired a 100% stake in Shopflo Technologies in a transaction valued at up to Rs 88 crore. RBS has also acquired Zeko, an AI-powered platform tailored for the hotel sector. Additionally, California-based Palo Alto Networks is poised to acquire Portkey to bolster its enterprise AI security capabilities as businesses increasingly adopt autonomous technologies.
Fund Launches
Early-stage VC firm Capital-A has successfully secured the first close of its second fund at Rs 160 crore, with aspirations to support startups across various sectors including aerospace, robotics, energy transition, and industrial hardware, targeting a corpus of Rs 300 crore along with a greenshoe option of Rs 100 crore.
New Launches and Partnerships
Dhan has introduced a Gold Vault feature, allowing Indians to purchase gold and silver directly from the exchange. Flipkart, in collaboration with Axis Bank and PayU, has instituted biometric authentication for card payments. MyGate has launched a Safe Pickup Mode, enhancing privacy during cab pickups at gated societies. ixigo introduced native travel applications on ChatGPT.
Recent News
Indian startup funding dipped to $865 million in April, as reported by Startup Superb. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) maintained over 22 billion transactions for the second consecutive month in April. Ola Electric experienced a 20% increase, even as EV two-wheeler registrations fell in April. Ather’s CEO Tarun Mehta challenged the government’s stance on PLI, asserting startups are driving the EV transition. Meanwhile, PhonePe surpassed 50 million registered merchants amid its dominance in the UPI segment and Kissht has filed an RHP to launch a Rs 926 crore IPO, setting the price band at Rs 162-171.
Summary
Weekly startup funding has decreased nearly 64%, standing at $47 million compared to around $129 million from the previous week. Following peak volumes recorded in March 2026, India’s electric two-wheeler market saw a 22% month-on-month drop in registrations for April, with Ola Electric being an exception as it registered over 20% growth during this period. National Payments Corporation of India data indicated that UPI noted a minor decrease in April after a record-high in March, with 22.35 billion transactions worth Rs 29.03 lakh crore. However, year-on-year volumes grew by 25%, with average daily transactions reaching 745 million and daily value at Rs 96,766 crore. PhonePe has reported coverage of over 98% of India’s postal codes, following its record achievement in March with more than 10 billion transactions in a single month.
