From Ayurveda Experience To Hunch — Indian Startups Raised $150 Mn This Week

Investment activity across the Indian startup ecosystem slipped again in the first week of March after a brief uptick. Between March 4 and 9, startups cumulatively raised over $150.1 Mn across 17 deals, a 254% decline from $381.4 Mn secured across 27 deals in the previous week.

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [Mar 4 – Mar 9]

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

• This week, D2C startup Ayurveda Experience and online fraud detection startup IDfy tied for the top funding, both securing $27 Mn. While IDfy raised Series E funding from Elev8, Ayurveda raked in capital as a part of its Series C round led by Jungle Ventures.
• Fuelled by Ayurveda Experience’s funding, ecommerce emerged as the most funded sector this week.
• The sector also reported the maximum number of six deals.
• However, the enterprisetech sector slipped to the second position, bagging a total of four deals.Enterprisetech startups like IDfy managed to secure $53.7 Mn this week.
• Total seed funding in the week also plummeted to $904.2K, a 492% dip from the $4.45 Mn  secured by seed stage startups last week.

Fund Launches This Week

• Revenue-based financing platform GetVantage rolled out The Rise-Up fund, with an initial corpus of INR 100 Cr (around $12 Mn). The fund will be deployed within the next one year to support over 400 women-led businesses.
• VC firm Colossa Ventures marked the first close of its maiden women-focused fund at INR 100 Cr ($12 Mn). With a target corpus of INR 500 Cr, the fund will be investing in women-led startups across sectors like healthcare, healthtech, fintech, climate and cleantech, deeptech and consumer.
• Climate tech venture studio NOW announced a $2 Mn fund to back early stage Indian deeptech and climate tech startups. NOW will invest  $250K to $500K in and “co-build” three to four startups in the next 12-18 months. 

Other Major Developments From This Week 

• Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) had committed INR 9,500 Cr in its Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS). SIDBI’s chairman S Ramann said that this commitment has led to over 100 alternate investment funds (AIFs) raising more than INR 56,000 Cr. The fund was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 with an approved corpus of INR 10,000 Cr for contribution to various AIFs registered with SEBI.
• With plans to launch its IPO in the second half of FY25, logistics unicorn BlackBuck is looking to raise as much as $300 Mn. The startup has initiated the preparations of its DRHP, which it will likely file with the full FY24 financial numbers.
• Flipkart’s marketplace arm, Flipkart Internet, received a cash infusion, raising about INR 924 Cr ($111 Mn) in two parts from its related entities based in Singapore. The company approved the two resolutions to infuse capital into it on December 20 and 22 last year.
• Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global, and other investors are eyeing a stake in ecommerce unicorn Meesho via a secondary transaction. The early investors of the startups are likely to offload shares worth around $200 Mn, which is expected to value the deal between $3.5 Bn and $3.9 Bn based on the final terms.
• US-based asset management firm Baron Capital Group has increased the fair value of its stake in IPO-bound Swiggy. This has bumped up the startup’s valuation to $12.16 Bn, an over 13% raise from its valuation of $10.7 Bn during the last fundraise in 2022.
• IT giant HCL Group has acquired a minority stake in education software company Educational Initiatives (Ei) for $20 Mn. The group bought Mumbai-based private equity firm Gaja Capital’s stake in Ei through a secondary stake sale.

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