Number Crunch

Indian Startups Are Being Flooded with Funding

Startups in India raised an unprecedented amount of money in first half of 2021

$20.5 billion: That’s the amount of money Indian start-ups raised this year as of 24 July, according to a report published by Inc42.

This is nearly twice the amount raised in the whole of 2020 ($11.5 billion).

Half of this amount was raised just in the month of July, led by Walmart-owned Flipkart and online food delivery platform Swiggy raising $3.6 billion and $1.25 billion respectively.

Indian startups raised $10.8 billion in the first six months of the year with 614 deals and $9.75 billion in the month of July with over 130 deals.

For the first six months, fintech and enterprise tech companies took the lions share of the funding, but the month of July skews the statistics towards e-commerce companies.

On average, Indian startups raised $100.2 Mn per day in 2021, according to Inc42.

According to The Economic Times, the first six months also saw a total of 16 startups enter the unicorn club, which are startups valued at $1 billion or more. This nearly twice the number of unicorns born in 2020.

The southern city of Bengaluru recorded the highest number of funding deals and capital, followed by Delhi-NCR region.

Many of the startups that received funding this year are gearing up for an initial public offering in the near future. Zomato leads the way having raised $1.25 billion in a blockbuster IPO that opened earlier this month. Other big names that are planning an IPO include MobiKwik, Nykaa, Policy Bazaar, Paytm, Flipkart, and Byju’s.

To put India’s fundraising in context: Israeli startups raised $11.9 billion and venture funding to startups in the Europe totaled an unprecedented $59 billion in the first half of this year. Meanwhile, Chinese startups raised $37 billion in the first five months of this year.

For a complete week-by-week breakdown on all the funding, check out Entrackr’s comprehensive archive.