For the Indian startup ecosystem, the first quarter of FY2021 — April to June 2020 — was the most difficult. During that time, startups sacked 22% of their staff on average, and the funding fell by 74% compared to FY2020.
However, a year later, in June 2021, the funding possibilities for startups could not be more different.
While H1 (January to June) 2020 closed at $5.2 Bn across 390 deals, the total funding raised by Indian startups in H1 2021, hit a peak of $10.8 Bn over 614 funding deals. The total startup funding in the same duration is already 95% of the total funding amount raised in all of 2020.
Adding to that, 2021 has already seen the entry of 15 startups in the unicorn club — as compared to 11 in 2020 — clearly depicting the rising investor appetite for Indian startups.
All these developments can majorly be attributed to the pandemic-induced change in the consumption pattern of the Indian consumers, which has opened up many opportunities for startups and businesses to tap into.
To decode this landscape, understand the current investment trends, the emerging sectors, what innovations are VCs seeing in the Indian market, Inc42 in association with Dell Technologies hosted a VC roundtable with leading names from the investor ecosystem.
Dell has been working with Indian SMBs and startups by not only helping them adapt to the changing market dynamics through its solutions but also optimising resources as well as securing their data and devices.
Inc42 & Dell Technologies’ VC Roundtable: Decoding The Startup Funding Landscape
Moderated by Sanjay Mehta, founder & partner, 100X.VC, the discussion saw participation of:
- Karan Mohla, partner, Chiratae Ventures
- Vikram Gupta, founder & managing partner, IvyCap Ventures
- Anup Jain, managing partner, Orios Venture Partners
- Siddharth Talwar, partner, Lightbox Ventures
- Gaurav Ranjan, VP, Investments, Prime Venture Partners
- Venkat Sitaram, General Manager & Geo Head, Dell Technologies
The Roundtable Covered Themes Such As:
- Indian startups’ race to IPO and how it will impact the overall funding climate in the country
- The rise of debt funding
- The impact of covid’s second wave on early to late-stage funding
- How are investors evaluating deals in the current market scenario
- The role of tech giants such as Dell in aiding the tech and digital adoption for startups; the challenges, hurdles, solutions and trends of this rise in digitisation and big tech adoption
- How investors are working with the portfolio startups to overcome challenges and the market conditions
- What kind of trends investors (amongst their portfolio) and Dell (amongst its startup clients) are seeing in the adoption of products/services offerings solutions for:
- Remote working
- Flexible IT
- What innovations investors and Dell are seeing in startups in their utilisation of Data
- In what has been a transformative year for many sectors within the technology industry, what indicators will VCs look for when making investment decisions going ahead
- 2020 Playbook and the relevance in the current markets
