Indian start-up ecosystem witnessed $885 million in funding across 102 funding rounds in August 2022, which is 20 per cent less funding amount as compared to July 2022, according to Tracxn’s August 2022 report on the Indian Tech Startup Space.
Funding in decline
India is currently experiencing a funding winter, which is expected to continue for the next 12-18 months. The quarterly funding in the startup ecosystem peaked in Q3 2021 at $14.8 billion and is on a steady decline since then. In Q2 2022, Indian startups raised a cumulative of $6. 84 billion as compared to the $10.3 billion raised in Q1 2022.
Sectors that attracted the most funding from investors in August 2022 include continued learning, alternative lending, e-commerce enablers, and investment tech. Edtech unicorn UpGrad announced a large funding round of $210 million in August, as it plans to hire 2,800 full-time and part-time faculty in the next 3 months.
Pune-based fintech start-up EarlySalary is another company that raised a large round of $110 million this month. It provides instant loans to young salaried individuals. Further, August saw nine acquisitions including Fintech unicorn Razorpay acquiring Ezetap, a provider of POS solutions for $200 million.
In terms of cities, Bengaluru led in the total funding raised this month, followed by Mumbai and Delhi. Beenext, LetsVenture, Accel, and Blume Ventures did the maximum number of deals, making them the top investors in August.