[Weekly funding roundup Mar 30 - Apr 5] VC inflow dips amid no large deals

Venture capital (VC) funding into Indian startups in the first week of April started on a disappointing note, as capital inflow dropped mainly due to the absence of large deals. Also this week, debt transactions saw the highest traction among startups.

Indian startups registered $142 million in VC funding across 23 deals, compared with the $210 million they raised last week.

This drop in weekly funding comes after a steady increase in VC investment into Indian startups since the last week of February. However, there seems to be less worry about this slowing trend, as industry observers believe funding activity continues to remain strong, and it might be just a blip.

During this week, debt transactions came out very strongly driven by a single transaction of Ola Electric, which raised the highest funding amount.

Nonetheless, there are signs that equity funding activity continues to remain strong as evidenced by the deals of SiMa.ai and Nivara Home Finance. VC funding will likely continue with its momentum in the months to come.

At the same time, startups like BYJU'S and Dunzo continue to face challenges, and given their circumstances, it is very unlikely that there would be any early closure.

Key transactions

Ola Electric raised $50 million in debt funding from the debt financing platform, EvolutionX Debt Capital.

SingleInterface, a B2B tech startup, raised $30 million from Asia Partners and PayPal Ventures.

Namdev Finvest raised $19 million led by Maj Invest Financial Inclusion Fund III K/S.

SaaS startup Scrut Automation raised $10 million from Lightspeed, MassMutual Ventures, and Endiya Partners.

D2C startup Traya Health raised Rs 75 crore (about $9 million) from Xponentia Capital.