Startups funding in India have witnessed over 62 per cent decline in 2023 to Rs 66,908 crore as compared to Rs 1,80,000 crore last year, a recent report by market intelligence platform PrivateCircle Research said.
These are the lowest funding numbers since 2018 when the startups in India raised Rs 1,00,930 crore. The highest funding was gathered in 2021 at Rs 2,41,787 crore, it highlighted.
The report titled ‘Startup Deals Report 2023’ also showed that the funding deal volume fell by a sharper 72 per cent in 2023 to 1,444 deals as compared to 5,114 in 2022. This is also the lowest number since 2018, when the total number of deals was 4,122.
As per the report, the slowdown was visible in the making of unicorns in India. Only two startups, Incred and Zepto, achieved unicorn status in India in 2023. In 2022, India had seen 23 new unicorns.
It highlighted that although there was a slowdown, the companies which had strong business fundamentals still managed to raise big rounds. Lenskart raised the biggest funding round of USD 500 million from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
PhonePe had raised an even bigger round of USD 600 million, but it has not been considered as it was from its parent company Walmart.
100X.VC topped the list of most active venture capitalists in terms of number of investment deals. It closed over 50 deals in 2023. Inflection Point Ventures and Blume Ventures followed 100X.VC in the list.
The report highlighted that during the funding peak in 2021, e-commerce led the secondary deals, followed by fintech and media & entertainment. In 2022 and 2023, fintech has continued to lead. In 2023, it was followed by SaaS and agritech.
There has also been a dip in the number of secondary deals. In 2023, 13 secondary deals were reported across these 117 startups, which is an 80 per cent drop in deal count as compared to 84 secondary deals in 2022 and 155 deals in 2021.