After a severe funding winter in 2024, Indian startup financing increased in April, continuing to show signs of recovery. Indian companies raised $868 million between April 1 and April 26, rising 15% from $754 million in March. This is true even if the financing fell to $512 million in January of this year, a five-year low.
Concurrently, the number of deals increased from 63 in the previous month to 90 in April 2024.
On a year-over-year basis, however, startup investment fell 2% in April 2024 from $888 Mn in the same month the previous year, and it was 66% less than the $1.52 Bn that Indian entrepreneurs raised in the same month the previous year.
It is important to note that in the first quarter of 2024, the YoY fall in funding was more noticeable. Reaching a seven-year low, the amount of money raised by Indian startups fell 33% YoY to $2 billion in the March quarter.
Following a little decrease in funding the previous month, seed and growth stage firms reported a YoY rise in investment in April. Last month, seed stage firms raised $178 million from 46 agreements, a 286% increase from the $46 million they raised from 25 deals a year earlier.
A $26 million check for their new omnichannel fashion business Lyskraft, secured by Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal and former Zomato senior executive Mohit Gupta, contributed to the rise in venture capital.
In the meantime, last month’s funding for growth stage startups increased 78% YoY to $332 million. The only significant funding of the month went to iBUS, a growth stage firm. The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) provided $200 million in strategic funding to the provider of digital infrastructure solutions.
Additionally, the month saw the $30 million Series B fundraising round led by Fundamentum Partnership, a venture capital firm cofounded by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal, and Edelweiss Discovery Fund, go to ProcMart, a growth stage enterprise tech startup. Still, the landscape for late-stage finance remained dire. Only $314 million was raised by late-stage firms in 13 deals in April, a 50% decrease.
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