Q1 2016 Funding Roundup - Indian startups raise over $1.42B across 307 deals

Indian startups raised $1.42 billion across 307 deals in Q1 2016, according to YourStory Research. While there has been a decline of over 16 percent in deal value compared to the same period last year, number of deals has in fact increased by 108 percent. Q1 2015 witnessed 147 deals and a total value of $1.7 billion.

While the last few months of 2015 saw investors and deal makers cautioning startups of a tough 2016 in terms of funding, the decline in value is not as high as was projected. Between January 2016 and February 2016, Indian startups raised an average $183.1 per second. About four startups have on average been announcing funding everyday in the past 90 days. Seven startups announced funding twice in one quarter. These were N.O.W, Tracxn, Qlivery, Smartcooky, Snapbizz, TinyStep and Kartrocket.

Funding by stage

There were 132 early stage deals, where the investment amount were not disclosed, out of that 112 were Pre-series A deals. The overall deal numbers were bumped up by pre-series A deals.

About $97.9 million was invested in 236 pre-series A stage startups. There were 31 Series A deals worth a total of $133 million, whereas 11 Series B deals were announced worth $76 million.There were 29 late stage deals across Series C, Series D, Series E and beyond. These respectively attracted $75 million, $361 million, $100 million, $88 million and $492 million.

Funding by location

Entrepreneurs from 18 cities across India raised funding despite the rumored cooling down of investor appetite. Bengaluru received the largest share of dollars –44 percent across 109 deals-followed by NCR-Delhi –33 percent across 91 deals. Mumbai-based startups attracted 19 percent of the funding across 49 deals.

Funding raised by companies with a woman founder

The fact that women entrepreneurs still are a minority in India is amply clear from the data collected. Overall, 68 startups with at least one woman co-founder raised $149 million in Q1 2016. Only nine of these startups have women as sole founders.

Exits

This year, seven companies listed on the stock exchanges. Three of them were startups once upon a time. Sequoia-backed QuickHeal, Goldman Sachs-backed TeamLease and bootstrapped Infibeam are the companies that went public in the first quarter. It’s not that often that we see VC-backed and bootstrapped companies hitting the public markets and receiving warm responses from retail investors.

Top funded startups that acquired another startup in Q1 2016

Top 5 highest funded startups that have been acquired in Q1 2016