Funding and acquisitions in Indian startups this week [04-09 Dec]

This week, 20 Indian startups have collectively raised around $130 million. This includes four growth-stage deals and 14 early-stage funding deals. Details of two startups’ funding deal remained undisclosed.

Last week, growth stage and early stage startups collectively raised about $60 million funding (amount of three deals was undisclosed).

[Growth-stage deals]

During the week, four growth startups raised funds. Sleep solution startup The Sleep Company secured $22 million funding followed Aerospace and defence manufacturer CoreEL which bagged $16 million funding.

Cloud kitchen company Biryani By Kilo and Online makeup and beauty learning platform Airblack raised $9 million and $4 million, respectively.

[Early-stage deals]

Among early-stage deals, generative AI startup Sarvam AI led the pack with $41 million fundraise. Construction goods and services platform RDC Concrete, Dairy fintech startup DGV, Rural-focussed fintech startup Navadhan and Manufacturing of specialty chemicals Scimplifi followed the list.

Furthermore, the list includes water management startup Digital Paani, on demand audio consultancy platform VoiceClub and more.

Among the early-stage deals this week, two startups did not disclose the amount raised. This includes Chainrisk and EsportsXO. For more information, visit TheKredible.

[City and segment-wise deals]    

In terms of city-wise number of funding deals, Bengaluru-based startups led the list with eight deals. Delhi-NCR and Mumbai remained in the second and third position with 6 and 4 deals, respectively.

Further, Pune and Kolkata-based startups saw one deal each.

The complete breakdown of the city and segment can be found at TheKredible.

[Series wise deals]

This week, pre-seed funding spearheaded with five deals followed by 4 seed, 3 Series A and 2 Series C deals.

Further the list counts pre-Series A, secondary, pre-Series B, grant and angel funding round.

[Week-on-week funding trend]

Following the funding trend, weekly funding again surged over 2X to $130 million as compared to around $63 million last week. The average funding in the last eight weeks stood at around $170 million with a deal size of 21 per week.

[M&A]

During the week, private equity firm ChrysCapital acquired  75% stakes in SaaS startup ProHance. FMCG company BIA Brands and edtech firm Allen acquired personal care brand TrueKind and edtech startup Doubtnut.

[Fund launches]

IAN Alpha Fund, a venture capital fund with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore (about $119 million), announced its first close at Rs 355 crore. SenseAI Ventures launched Rs 200 crore fund fostering India’s AI startup ecosystem while Goodera Impact Innovator Fund also launched a fund worth $500k.

[Layoffs/Shutdowns]

This week, edtech startup Simplilearn fired around 200 employees citing their poor performance. Buy now pay later platform ZestMoney also fired approx 150 employees along with shutting down operating by December end.

Further, Web3 startup Purple Pay and teen-centered neo-banking platform Akudo are also shutting down their operations soon.

Visit TheKredible to see exits, series wise deals and amount breakup, and more insights.

[New launches]

▪ Pravin Jadhav’s Dhan launched mutual fund investment services

▪ Rapido launched cab service; set to take on Ola, Uber with SaaS play

[Financial results this week]

▪️ OkCredit lost Rs 428 Cr to earn Rs 9 Cr since incorporation

▪️ BookMyShow posts Rs 1,026 Cr income and Rs 85 Cr profit in FY23

▪️ Gameskraft reports Rs 1,062 Cr profit after tax in FY23

▪️ FIITJEE posts Rs 542 Cr revenue in FY23, slips into losses

▪️ Blackbuck’s revenue continues to shrink in third consecutive fiscal

▪️ Decoding Third Wave Coffee’s Series C round, captable and valuation

[News flash this week]

▪️ Unacademy has Rs 1,800 Cr in bank, runway of 4 years: Gaurav Munjal

▪ Venture Catalysts gets 3.65X returns in partially exit from Insurance Samadhan

▪ Ola Electric set to file IPO papers by December 20

▪ MeitY blocked over 100 websites amid illegal investments, job fraud

[Entrackr’s analysis]

The trend of ups and downs in weekly funding continues as the funding raised by startups this week again rose over 2X. However, the weekly startup funding has not crossed $150 million in the last four weeks.

Additionally, as many as three startups are shutting down their operations in the coming weeks impacting more than 350 employees.