Startups write a $1.5-billion twist in winter’s tale

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

December has turned out to be the busiest month of 2023 for risk capital investors, who have announced more than $1.5 billion funding till Tuesday. However, most industry watchers would be cautious about terming it the end of the funding winter.

This month’s funding now tops January’s $1.4-billion raise, which was the highest for the year so far, data compiled until December 26 by Tracxn showed.

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However, despite the last-month sprint, funding in India’s startups in 2023 remained at a seven-year low of $8.8 billion. Notably, the monthly funding counter had also not crossed the billion-dollar mark since March this year.


Late-stage Deals

In March, deals worth $1.1 billion were announced.

Investors said the latest data pertain to deals that closed a few months ago, as the formal announcement comes with a lag.

According to the data, over 85% of the fund flows came into late-stage deals during December, bucking the broader trend of a slowdown in growth- and late-stage funding.


The surge is, thus, attributed to a few large deals, including the $600-million fund infusion in ecommerce marketplace Flipkart by US-based retail major Walmart, as part of the Bengaluru-based firm’s $1-billion round that is yet to close. ET was the first to report this development on December 21.

Other big-ticket transactions announced during the month included business-to-business ecommerce marketplace Udaan’s $340-million fundraise, led by UK savings and investment firm M&G Prudential. A significant