Indian startups have displayed signs of recovery, securing a substantial $7 billion in funding during the first half of 2024.

The Indian startup ecosystem is going through a recovery phase: there have been larger funding rounds, an increase in the number of deals, a surge in secondary deals and ESOP buybacks, and a decline in layoffs.

As per data compiled by TheKredible, Indian startups raised nearly $7 billion in funding during the first half of 2024. This is more than the $5.92 billion raised in H1 2023. But it’s also far less than $20 billion in H1 2022 which now seems like the golden phase for startups, at least in terms of venture capital inflow.

The $7 billion funding consisted of 182 growth or late stage deals worth $5.4 billion and 404 early-stage deals worth $1.54 billion. Meanwhile, 99 were undisclosed deals. During the first half, Indian startups produced a couple of unicorns: Perfios and Krutrim SI Designs. In 2023, only two startups managed to go past the unicorn valuation while 2022 and 2021 saw the emergence of 26 and 44 unicorns, respectively.

[Y-o-Y and M-o-M trend]

As mentioned above, there is a significant increase in the number of startup deals and funding in H1 2024 from $5.92 billion in H1 2023. If we see the last four consecutive half yearly data, H1 2024 stands at the top in terms of total amount raised. The growth can be attributed to a bunch of $100 million plus rounds and mega deals bagged by late stage firms such as Zepto, Flipkart, PharmEasy and Lenskart.

When it comes to month-on-month trends, June saw nearly $2 billion in funding which is more than double of the average of $1 billion monthly funding until May this year.

[Top 10 growth stage deals in H1]

Late stage companies such as Zepto, Flipkart, PharmEasy and Lenskart were on the top with $665 million, $350 million, $216 million, and $200 million funding, respectively. Lenskart’s $200 million funding was a pure secondary transaction play whereas Zepto may have also had some secondary component in the last funding round.

Overall, all startups in the top 10 list have raised more than $100 million each during the first six months of 2024. The list includes Engrail, Atlan, Pocket FM, Nephroplus, SEDEMAC and Shadowfax.

[Top 10 early stage deals in H1]

Invite-only networking platform SCOPE led the funding chart for early stage startups with $90 million funding. This was followed by AI startup Krutrim, blockchain startup Avail, e-commerce startup Indkal and battery tech startup IBC.

Lyskraft, Ema, StockGro, Hunch and Rozana also made it to the top 10 list of early stage deals. Notably, more than 30 early stage startups have raised over $10 million each during H1 2024.

[Mergers and Acquisitions]

The first half of 2024 saw 55 mergers and acquisitions, which is lower when compared to the previous years.  The year 2021 saw more than 250 mergers and acquisitions which declined to 204 in 2022 and further reduced to 145 in 2023. Even if we double the number of M&A, it will hover around 100 in total by the end of 2024.

There were stress deals during the period which included the acquisition of ZestMoney by DMI Group, MX Player by Amazon, Kuvera by CRED, Spartan Poker by OneVerse, and ET Money by 360 One (formerly IIFL Wealth).