• Thursday, March 28, 2024

Business

Indian start-ups raised $6.5 bn funding in Q2 2021: report

A Swiggy delivery-man rides his bike to deliver an order to a customer in Mumbai on April 7, 2020. (Photo by PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Shubham Ghosh

INDIAN start-ups got about $6.5 billion in funding in the period between April and June 2021 and 11 of them entered the unicorn club, a report by Nasscom-PGA Labs revealed, adding that the country’s start-up ecosystem has shown a “strong resilience” despite a devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Compared to the January-March quarter, the second quarter saw 160 funding deals getting closed, up by two per cent. Funding in the June quarter went up to reach $6.5 billion, 71 per cent more if seen quarter-on-quarter.

ALSO READ: VC funding in 2021: Indian start-ups trail only China

The quarter’s biggest deal was the $800 million fund-raise by food delivery platform Swiggy, followed by ShareChat ($502 million), Byju’s ($340 million), Pharmacy ($323 million) and Meesho ($300 million), the report said.

Among other firms are, as per the report, Pine Labs ($285 million), Delhivery ($277 million), Zeta ($250 million), CRED ($215 million) and Urban Company ($188 million).
“The Indian start-up ecosystem that generated 53 unicorns till June 2021 has made great strides in the April-June quarter. From recording the most funding deals to adding the most number of unicorns in a quarter, investors’ confidence in good-quality digital businesses has strengthened like never before,” PGA Labs director, Competitive Intelligence, Abhishek Maiti told Press Trust of India.

He also said that the deal flow looks promising for the latter half too as India reopens after a series of lockdowns during the pandemic and sectors like fintech, foodtech and healthtech continue to gain from the pandemic-induced adoption strategy.

Fintech the most-funded sector

Fintech was the most-funded sector, accounting for 27 per cent of the total deal value in the same quarter. Foodtech followed with 13 per cent, enterprise tech (11 per cent), edtech (10 per cent) and media and entertainment (eight per cent).

Growth stage funding constituted 61 per cent of the total deal value, it added.

About 100 start-ups got funding in the early stage, accounting for nine per cent of the total funding raised.

The June 2021 quarter also saw the rise of 11 unicorns (companies with $1 billion valuation) and they are Urban Company, CRED, Meesho, Groww, ShareChat, PharmEasy, Zeta, BrowserStack, Moglix, Gupshup and Chargebee.

With this, the total number of unicorns in the country stood at 53 as of June 2021.

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