Venture capital funding into Indian startups continues to remain lacklustre largely due to the ongoing tense macroeconomic environment with the conflict in West Asia affecting economies.
This conflict between Iran, Israel and the United States has created a great deal of uncertainty not just with rising oil prices but also the stability of the financial markets which has slowed the fund flow across economies.
These developments had a bearing on the Indian startups as total VC funding for the second week of March came in $143 million across 23 deals. Though it was marginally higher than the comparable previous week of $90 million but nevertheless VC funding has remained range bound under $200 million on a weekly basis since the last week of January.
There is nothing much to talk about in the two-and-half-months of the year till now except for the $600 million transaction of Neysa.
In the current week, debt funding had the highest traction and this was primarily due to the $31.3 million deal of Captain Fresh. There were deals across all stages of funding starting from pre-series A to B, but there was not even a single transaction of $50 million and above.
These developments show that the Indian startup ecosystem continues to remain a challenging environment and the hope of any quick recovery has diminished.
Key transactions
Captain Fresh, the Bengaluru-headquartered global packaged seafood company, has raised 27 million euros (approximately Rs 290 crore) from Blue Earth Capital.
KaarTech raised $11 million led by Playbook Partners.
StrideOne, a tech-enabled NBFC that provides finance for MSMEs, has raised Rs 100 crore ($10.8 million) in funding from undisclosed investors.
Drone startup Skye Air Mobility raised $9 million from IAN Alpha Fund, AVNM Ventures, Faad Capital, and Bajaj Capital.
AquaExchange, an agritech startup raised $8 million from Endiya Partners, Factor Analytics, Accion Ventures and Ocean 14 Capital.
Climate tech startup Newtrace raised ₹56.93 crore ($6.3 million approx.) from HDFC Bank, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, Peak XV’s Surge, Aavishkaar Capital, Speciale Invest, Micelio Technology Fund, and angel investors.
