Tiger Global takes a backseat in large investments rounds in India

New York’s Tiger Global had emerged as the unicorn maker in 2021 as the fund was betting more on growth-stage startups which contributed to the making of 22 of 41 unicorns. But that trend seems to be fading away this year.

Of the 17 companies that turned unicorn in 2022, Tiger Global has only backed five of them, as per our data tracking platform Fintrackr. This includes DealShare, Oxyzo, Games24x7, Polygon and Open. Notably, the fund was the lead investor in only two of them i.e. DealShare, Oxyzo. This is a significant drop in the percentage of leading funding rounds in unicorns to 11.75% in 2022 from more than 30% in the previous year.

The full database can be found here.

Despite that, the total number of smaller deals done by Tiger this year still stand solid indicating it has maintained the same pace as last year, but has mostly stayed away from partaking in larger rounds. Overall, Tiger Global has done 33 deals including nine early-stage in 2022 so far. The number was 53 including four early-stage deals in the last year. 

For context, Tiger Global was the lead or participating investor in 32 deals in which a startup raised $100 million or more in a round in 2021. However, the number stood at five so far this year. The list includes ChargeBee, Oxyzo, DealShare, Moglix and Polygon.

Meanwhile, Tiger Global has doubled its investments in early-stage startups [seed to Series A] to nine in just four and half months as compared to four in the entire 2021. The fund’s recent investment in Shopflo’s $2.6 million seed round was a big surprise for all. While this is the first seed investment for the New York-based fund in India in 2022, the firm had backed cricket NFT startup FanCraze (previously Faze Technologies) in its $17.4 million seed round.

Citing data sourced from Tracxn, a Business Today report said that Tiger Global has backed more Indian startups in their seed stage. These startups are Dream Sports, Cube26, Roposo, Games24x7, Babyoye and Urban Touch.

In 2021, Tiger Global had backed 28 deals in Series D stage and beyond whereas the fund has invested in eight late-stage startups this year so far. In terms of percentage, Tiger Global’s growth or late-stage investment decreased from 92% in 2021 to 72% in 2022 and its early stage investments has gone up from 7.5% in 2021 to more than 27% in the current year. It appears that Tiger Global has shifted its focus to early-stage startups and the fund may invest in more startups in this category in the coming months. 

Tiger Global declined to comment on the story.

Fintrackr has also calculated the drop in the average deal size in funding rounds where Tiger Global was an investor. Data suggests that the average deal size in 2021 in Tiger Global-backed startups stood at $150 million which was reduced to $77.7 million in 2022. This is an almost 50% fall in average deal size as compared to the last year. A handful of startups raised two or more rounds from the Chase Coleman-led fund in the last year which include OfBusiness, Spinny, CRED, CoinSwitch Kuber, Infra.Market, Apna and Pristyn Care.

The Indian startup ecosystem has been going through slowdown effects. The taper down in funding can also be gauged from the recent reports which suggest that there are less number of larger rounds in the past month. As per Fintrackr’s data, Indian startups raised $2.65 billion across 121 deals in April, a 33.75% decline from $4 billion in the previous month. During the period, the number of unicorns and ESOP buybacks also reduced to zero. In the last 45 days, only neo banking platform Open managed to enter the unicorn club.

While Tiger Global’s overall performance in 2022 will be interesting to watch, the fund has also seen a rapid surge in its losses in the past months. According to a Bloomberg report, Tiger Global is losing about $16 billion during the first four months of the year and the firm’s flagship hedge fund posted a 15% decline in April, extending the 2022 loss to 44%. A Financial Times report further added that the fund has lost about $17 billion as a result of this year's selloff in technology stocks.

In February, Tiger Global had raised more than $11 billion for its latest venture capital fund: The Private Investment Partners 15 fund or PIP 15.