[Weekly funding roundup Feb 22-28] VC investments plummets further

February has ended on a slightly downcast note for the Indian startup ecosystem as venture capital (VC) continued to fall for two consecutive weeks reflecting the impact of global macroeconomic challenges.

The total VC funding for the last week of February came in just $101 million across 21 deals. In contrast, the previous week saw a total amount of $147 million. This week there was just one deal of Geniemode that touched $50 million and the rest were below $20 million. It shows that large deals will be fewer in number at least for some more time.

This steady decline in VC inflow into Indian startups has been largely due to global trade tension primarily from the decision of the United States to impose tariffs on other countries. Coupled with this, there is also uncertainty about the growth prospects of the domestic economy. Also on Friday, the stock markets in India saw one of their steepest fall leading to further gloom.

These developments show that the Indian startup ecosystem will continue to face challenges in terms of raising capital and only those companies with robust business models will gain the attention of the investors.

At the same time, the Indian startup ecosystem continues to see interesting developments. Paytm has entered into a partnership with AI startup Perplexity. Zomato will further invest another Rs 1500 crore into Blinkit. Lastly, Wipro has announced a fresh capital of $200 million into its venture arm—Wipro Ventures.

Key transactions

Geniemode, an apparel sourcing platform, raised $50 million from Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Fundamentum, Paramark Ventures, and Info Edge Ventures.

MOC Cancer Care & Research Centre, a chain of cancer daycare centres raised $18 million led by Elevation Capital.

Oxyzo Financial Services raised Rs 100 crore ($11.4 million approx) in debt led by AK Capital Finance Limited.

Quick Clean, a professional linen management solutions startup raised Rs 50 crore ($5.7 million) from Alkemi Growth Capital and Blue Ashva Capital.

EV startup Vidyut raised $2.5 million from Flourish Ventures.