Indian startups raised $3.56 Bn in Feb: Entrackr Monthly Funding Report

Investment inflow continues at unprecedented rates with large funding rounds last month. Homegrown startups scooped up $3.56 billion in total fundraising in February according to our data tracking platform Fintrackr. 

Overall, 165 startups raised funding last month: this included 41 growth stage and late-stage startups, 99 early-stage firms and 25 did not disclose their transaction details. This is a close to three-fold jump in the amount raised by Indian startups as compared to February last year, but a drop from January this year when $4.6 billion worth  investments across 202 deals flowed in.

Just like in January, last month also saw five startups gaining the coveted ‘unicorn status.’ This included companies GraphQL developer platform Hasura, conversational automation platform Uniphore, kirana commerce platform ElasticRun, logistics startup XpressBees and home interior and renovation platform Livspace. 

In Entrackr’s monthly funding report, here are details of the top 10 deals in both the growth stage and early-stage investments for February:

Top 10 growth/late-stage deals

A total of 41 growth and late-stage startups scooped up $3.17 billion in February. Blockchain company Polygon was the top fundraiser in the last month with a $450 million round led by Sequoia Capital India. The top 10 list include Uniphore, ElasticRun, XpressBees, ChargeBee, Livspace, Pine Labs, MediBiddy, Hasura and Niyo. 

It’s worth noting that each of these 10 startups raised $100 million or more in their funding round. Details of all 165 deals can be found here.

Early-stage deals

Around 99 early-stage startups raised funds worth $384.7 million in February as compared to $648 million funding across 129 deals in the previous month. The top 10 early-stage investments include EV startup Altigreen, fintech startups Jar, RapiPay and Karbon Card, deeptech startup Two Platforms, healthtech startup Kenko Health, SaaS startups Oloid and Nanonets, agritech startup AGRIM and D2C brand Joint Ventures.

Undisclosed deals

In February, 25 startups did not reveal the details of their transaction as compared to 35 undisclosed rounds in the previous month. Some of the notable undisclosed deals in February were Deepinder Goyal’s investment in Park+, Jeff Bezos’ investment in Jakarta and Bengaluru-based startup Lummo. 

City wise deals

Like previous months, Bengaluru was on top in terms of the number of startup deals and the amount raised. The startups based out of the city scooped up $1.8 billion across 78 deals. During the last month, Mumbai-based startups raised $700 million across 28 deals followed by Chennai and Delhi NCR.

Segment-wise deals

SaaS was the top segment in terms of the number of fundraising in February with 26 deals followed by fintech, healthtech, D2C brands, edtech, and agritech. The complete breakdown of deals across segments in February can be seen below. 

ESOP buybacks

Apart from the record fundraising, half a dozen startups also announced their ESOP liquidity program worth $39.6 million in February to reward their employees. The list includes TheMathCompany, Cars24, Slice, Bizongo, LEAD and Gramophone.

Acquisitions

In line with the fundraising spree was also the acquisition pace. Indian startups saw over two dozen acquisitions or consolidations in February. As per Fintrackr’s data, 27 startups have been acquired or merged with larger companies in the last month. 

In terms of deal size, the acquisition of cloud communication company Knowlarity by Gupshup was the largest i.e. worth around $100 million. The list includes the acquisition of BBLUNT by Mamaearth and Culec by Razorpay.