Warming deal street hints a funding spring is near

livemint.com:

MUMBAI : When office commute platform MoveInSync decided to raise $15 million in January, it received term sheets from prospective investors within a week of launching the deal. Though such rapid response is still rare, many investors said deal activity has begun to pick up pace, signalling the approaching end to an agonizing funding winter. While funding in the very early stages continued in the past two years, growth-stage funding had slowed to a crawl.

Now, Series A and B rounds and beyond are warming up. More than half a dozen founders and investors said the deals cycle has restarted and companies are seeing renewed interest from investors. “After a rough patch during covid, business has rebounded and is profitable.

With the business growing, profitability too is growing. This has led to unprecedented investor interest in our company, I believe," said Deepesh Agarwal, co-founder of MoveInSync that saw backing from Bessemer Venture Partners in its Series C funding round. “Even though we have closed the round, the inbound enquiries continue to come in," he added.

As per Tracxn data, the top five deals since January include Credit Saison’s $144 million Series D funding from Mizuho Financial; Shadowfax’s $100 million Series E funding from investors led by TPG NewQuest; Capillary’s $95 million Series D funding from investors led by Unigestion and Filter Capital; Vivifi India Finance’s Series B funding of $75 million; and EV company River's $40-million raise from investors led by Yamaha Group. Like most other markets, India has seen deal activity in three buckets – venture capital, growth and buyout. With technology investments taking a beating worldwide and liquidity drying up, the early stage or venture capital deal flow