Indian startups raised $1.2 bn in Jan, PhonePe & KreditBee lead

New Delhi, Feb 6: Indian startups raised about $1.2 billion in January amid rough macroeconomic conditions and funding winter.

According to data by Fintrackr, an arm of startup news portal Entrackr, growth-stage startups witnessed 22 deals worth $926 million in the first month of 2023.

Early-stage startups received $265 million across 67 deals while 12 startups did not disclose transaction details.

According to the report, the average deal size for early-stage startups was nearly $4 million.

PhonePe's $350 million and KreditBee's $120 million funding round accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the overall financing in January.

E-commerce (including D2C startups) segment saw more deals and fintech continued to dominate with $587 million in total funding.

Bengaluru was the leading city with 60 deals while Delhi-NCR saw 15 deals, the report mentioned.

The Indian startup ecosystem witnessed 18 mergers and acquisitions across segments in January.

In 2022, the funding for the Indian startups was nearly $24 billion, a drop of 33 per cent in comparison to CY21 but was still more than twice the funds raised in CY20 and CY19 each, according to a PwC India report.

Growth and late-stage funding deals accounted for 88 per cent of the funding activity in CY22 (in value terms).

Average ticket size in growth-stage deals was $43 million and in the late-stage deals was $94 million during CY22, said the PwC India report.