[Weekly funding roundup March 22-28] Venture capital inflows see marginal rise

Venture capital funding into Indian startups saw a marginal increase in the last week of March. This has been a month with uneven fund inflow, revealing the challenges that the ecosystem continues to face with regard to raising capital.

The total funding during this week came in at $191 million across 26 deals. In contrast the previous week saw a total funding of $110 million.

This month, the VC inflow on a weekly basis has fluctuated from a high of $412 million to dropping as low as $110 million. This unevenness shows that the Indian startup ecosystem has still not secured the certainty of consistent capital inflows. It is largely due to the challenging macroeconomic uncertainty, which includes a perceptible slowdown in the domestic economy and the threat of tariffs from the United States.

One thing which has been very clear since the start of this year has been the sparse number of large deals, that is, transactions with a value of $100 million and above. There were just five such transactions in the year till now.

During this week, the early stage continued to maintain the trend of having the largest number of deals but the growth stage saw the highest amount. It is unlikely that there would be any certainty on a steady fund flow environment in the coming months.

On the other hand, there are interesting developments in the Indian startup ecosystem. VC firms continue to raise fresh capital, with this week seeing 2am VC launching a new fund. Meanwhile, Inflection Point Ventures has reported 14 exits in 2024.

There were also startups which have India connections but headquartered in the US that raised funding. These included Nexthop AI and Abound.

Key transactions

Online investment platform smallcase raised $50 million from Elev8 Venture Partners, State Street Global Advisors, Niveshaay AIF, Faering Capital, and Arkam Ventures.

Dairy products brand Country Delight raised Rs 212.49 crore ($25 million approximately) from V-Sciences Investments, backed by Temasek.

Retail chain Apna Mart raised Rs 214.5 crore ($25 million approximately) Fundamentum, Accel, Peak XV Partners, Alteria Capital, Sparrow Capital and 2AM Ventures.

DCDC Health raised Rs 150 crore ($17.4 million approximately) from Singapore-based ABC Impact.

Ecofy Finance raised $12.5 million from Denmark’s Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU).

Agritech startup Grow Indigo raised $10 million from British International Investment (BII).

Cloud kitchen house of brands Curefoods raised $6.6 million from BlackSoil, Binny Bansal and Caspian Investments.