

Startup fundraising slumps to four-year low as global investors hold back
global investors such as SoftBank and Tiger Global remained cautious, ToI reported. Instead of making fresh bets, they largely focused on smaller follow-on investments in their existing portfolio companies, significantly slowing capital deployment.
According to a report by Bain & Company and the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA), this represents a 33% decline from the $4 billion raised in 2023.
A global tech downturn that impacted markets in late 2022 and 2023 prompted venture capital (VC) and growth funds to take a measured approach, leaving them with substantial undeployed capital and leading to a recalibration of new fund targets.
“Leading VC funds had sizeable fundraises in 2022 and 2023, but deployments slowed in the second half of 2022 and 2023. Most top VCs did not see the need to raise another big fund,” Prabhav Kashyap, partner at Bain & Company, told ToI.
The number of funds exceeding $100 million dropped sharply to four in 2024 from 10 in the previous year.
However, VC firm Accel bucked the trend, closing a $650 million fund for Indian startups. “Fundraising declined as top investors (barring Accel) tempered activity… crossover funds remain subdued.
Tiger Global maintained its focus on backing existing portfolio companies without making new bets. SoftBank marked its return to Indian startups after an 18-month hiatus by exclusively funding existing investments,” Bain analysts stated.
Tiger Global’s last venture capital fund, which closed in early 2024, raised $2.2 billion—well below its initial $6 billion target and significantly lower than its previous $12.7 billion fund raised in 2022.