Indian Startups Raise Record Rs 75,000 Cr In 90 Days; This Sector #1 In Funding

Indian start-ups have received investments crossing the $10 billion mark during the quarter, setting new funding records.

It has crossed the $10 billion mark during the quarter, having raised a quantum of $10.9 billion in capital across 347 deals.

This is a two-fold rise compared to the same period last year.

Investments had increased across all start-up verticals sectors in terms of value as well as volume.

Drivers Of Growth

84% of the funding activity was driven by growth and late-stage deals.

But these represented 39% of the total deal activity (count terms).

The remaining 61% consisted of early-stage funding (seed, pre-series, angel) rounds amounting to $1.6 billion with an average ticket size per round of $4 million.

Notably, start-ups in pre-IPO stages such as Ola, Droom, and Pine Labs raised around $880 million in capital in CY21.

Fintech, edtech and SaaS remained the sectors which were most funded- collectively accounting for 47% of the total funding activity.

Fintech

The fintech sector saw a near four-fold increase in funds raised- a total of $4.6 billion In the first three quarters of 2021.

53 deals were closed in the third quarter alone. 

The figure last year was $1.6 billion.

Fintech startups in the insurance, wealth management and neobanks segment in particular saw renewed interest from investors this year.

Edtech

This sector has gained a lot of investor interest especially since suich companies have experienced increase in user base and engagement.

Byjus, an edtech firm, is India’s highest valued startup. 

Rivals UpGrad, Eruditus and Vedantu achieved unicorn status this year.

SaaS

Freshworks listed on the Nasdaq last month and peers Postman, Innovaccer and WhatFix pulled in capital. 

This sector has attracted more investments than others.

Unicorn/Decacorn

In total, 371 new companies attained unicorn status in the first three quarters of 2021.

Six of those were fintech companies- Digit Insurance, Five Star Finance, Cred, Groww, Zeta and BharatPe.

Globally, the number of decacorns (companies valued over 10 billion) is approaching 40.

Most of these are headquartered out of the US and China/Hong Kong but 3 of them are from India- Byju’s, Paytm and OYO.