New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) This week, 31 domestic startups raised over $466 million across 22 deals. This is a 75 per cent increase from the previous week.
Quick e-commerce platform Zepto raised $340 million in a follow-on financing round. This valued the company at five billion dollars. General Catalyst led this round. Dragon Fund and Epic Capital joined as new investors.
Among other major fund raisers, specialty coffee retailer Blue Tokai Coffee raised $35 million, followed by lending firm UB ($30 million), agri-input platform AGRIM ($17.3 million) and after-sales service firm Servify ($10 million).
Swiggy also raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Amitabh Bachchan’s family office this week.
Bengaluru-based startups led the way with eight deals, followed by Mumbai and Delhi-NCR.
According to a latest report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India), after generating over $100 billion in value in the last decade, the Indian fintech ecosystem is in its “mid-journey”.
The number of fintechs in the country has quadrupled in four years. Unicorns and soonicorns have tripled in the same period.
The government has recognised 1,40,803 entities as startups as of June 30. More than 55 regulatory reforms have been undertaken by the government since 2016 to enhance ease of doing business, ease raising capital and reduce compliance burden for the startup ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the Centre approved new courses in various applications as well as four startups in the field of technical textiles with a grant of Rs 50 lakh each. The approved startup projects are focused on key strategic areas of composites, sustainable textiles and smart textiles.
–IANS
AKS/CBT
