Indian Startup Funding — Startups Raised $88 Mn This Week

SUMMARY

Between February 24 and March, Indian startups raised $88.3 Mn via 16 deals, a 43% decline from the $152.9 Mn across 17 deals last week

The week's biggest funding round, Geniemode's $50 Mn fundraise, helped ecommerce retain its spot as the investor favourite sector this week

Seven startups at the seed stage raised $5.7 Mn this week, marking a 62% decline from the $15.1 Mn raised by startups at this stage last week

Caught among disinterested foreign institutional investors, geopolitical tensions and uneven consumption, February remained mostly gloomy for the Indian markets.

Amid this bearish market, investor sentiment towards the Indian startup ecosystem also went down significantly throughout the month. In the final week of February, startups cumulatively raised $88.3 Mn via 16 deals. This marks a near 43% decrease from the $152.9 Mn raised across 17 deals in the preceding week.

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [ Feb 24 – Mar 1 ]

Date	Name	Sector	Subsector	Business Model	Funding Round Size	Funding Round Type	Investors	Lead Investor
24 Feb 2025	Geniemode	Ecommerce	B2B Ecommerce	B2B	$50 Mn	Series C	Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Fundamentum, Paramark Ventures, InfoEdge Ventures	Multiples Alternate Asset Management
24 Feb 2025	Oxyzo	Fintech	Lendingtech	B2B	$11.5 Mn	Debt	AK Capital	AK Capital
22 Feb 2025	Niyogin**	Fintech	Financial Services	B2B	$6.4 Mn	–	MK Ventures, Aionios Alpha Investment Management, Ashika Groupm, Amit Rajpal	–
26 Feb 2025	Quick Clean	Consumer Services	Hyperlocal Services	B2C	$6 Mn	–	Alkemi Growth Capital, Blue Ashva Capital	Alkemi Growth Capital, Blue Ashva Capital
27 Feb 2025	FanTV	Media & Entertainment	Digital Media	B2C	$3 Mn	–	Mysten Labs, Cypher Capital, CoinSwitch Ventures, Illuminati Capital	Mysten Labs
26 Feb 2025	Vidyut	Cleantech	Electric Vehicles	B2B	$2.5 Mn	–	Flourish Ventures	Flourish Ventures
26 Feb 2025	HiWiPay	Fintech	Payments	B2C	$2 Mn	Seed	Unicorn India Ventures, Dewang Neralla’s family office, Jupiter Metaverse, Ritesh Malik, Mitesh Shah, Nilesh Doshi	Unicorn India Ventures
28 Feb 2025	Sisir Radar	Deeptech	Spacetech	B2B	$1.5 Mn	Seed	Shastra VC, Riverwalk Holdings, INVSTT	Shastra VC
27 Feb 2025	Astrogate Labs	Deeptech	Spacetech	B2B	$1.3 Mn	–	Piper Serica Angel Fund	Piper Serica Angel Fund
26 Feb 2025	Triple Tap Games	Media & Entertainment	Gaming	B2C	$1.2 Mn	Seed	Eximius Ventures, Kalaari Capital	Eximius Ventures, Kalaari Capital
25 Feb 2025	Dodo Payments	Fintech	Payments	B2B	$1.1 Mn	pre-Seed	Antler, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Nitin Gupta, Maninder Gulati, Raymond Russell, Preethi Kasireddy, Nishant Verman	Antler, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts
27 Feb 2025	Earthful	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$572K	–	Srinivasan Namala, Ritesh Agarwal	Srinivasan Namala
27 Feb 2025	Pickkup	Logistic	Freight	B2B	$500K	Seed	We Founder Circle	We Founder Circle
26 Feb 2025	Hornet	Fintech	Fintech SaaS	B2B	$458K	Seed	Artha Venture Fund	Artha Venture Fund
24 Feb 2025	Make in Box	Deeptech	Robotics	B2B	$260K	pre-Seed	Mile Deep Works	Mile Deep Works
24 Feb 2025	KiranaPro	Consumer Services	Hyperlocal Delivery	B2C	–	–	PV Sindhu	PV Sindhu
	Source: Inc42 Part of a larger round *Included this week as it was skipped last week Note: Only disclosed funding rounds have been included

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

The week’s biggest funding round, Geniemode’s $50 Mn fundraise, helped ecommerce retain its spot as the investor favourite sector this week. Besides Geniemode, D2C startup Earthful also secured $572K in the week.
Fintech sector saw five startups, Oxyzo, Niyogin, HiWiPay, Dodo Payments and Hornet, cumulatively raising $21.5 Mn.
However, no investor made more than one bet this week. Among the active investors in the week include Flourish Ventures, Piper Serica, Unicorn India Ventures, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalyst.
Seven startups at the seed stage raised $5.7 Mn this week, marking a 62% decline from the $15.1 Mn raised by startups at this stage last week.

Startup IPO Updates Of The Week

The board of consumer electronics major bOAt cleared changes in its articles of association (AoA) this week, as per its regulatory filing with the MCA. This clears the path for its IPO.
Fintech unicorn PhonePe has reportedly picked four investment bankers, Kotak Mahindra Capital, JP Morgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley, to helm its initial public offering (IPO). The startup is likely to file its IPO papers in the first week of March.
About six months after filing its DRHP, meat delivery startup Zappfresh is eyeing its BSE SME listing at the start of FY26, the founder said.

Mergers & Acquisitions This Week

Titan Capital-backed SaaS startup Zenduty was acquired by US-based Xurrent for an undisclosed amount.
Listed edtech company Veranda Learning Solutions acquired 40% stake in BB Virtuals and 65% stake in Ahmedabad-based online CA coaching institute Navkar Digital.
Fintech superapp super.money bought BNPL fintech startup BharatX to strengthen its credit offerings, particularly in the checkout financing space.

Other Developments Of The Week

Tiger Global-backed B2B ecommerce unicorn Moglix bagged $12.3 Mn from its Singapore parent since December last year in four tranches.
Air mobility startup The ePlane Company is planning to raise $30-50 Mn in its Series C funding round.
Wipro has committed $200 Mn to its venture arm, Wipro Ventures, to accelerate investments in early to mid-stage startups.
Edtech unicorn upGrad launched its ‘upGrad AI Incubator’ with an allocation of INR 100 Cr to back 5-6 homegrown AI startups over the next few months.
HRTech unicorn Darwinbox is in talks to raise $120-150 Mn in a down round that could be led by global private equity firm KKR and Partners Group.