Indian start-ups raised a record $14.5 bn in 1185 funding rounds this year

The decade has seen an impressive 25x growth in terms of the total funding raised by the startups .

BS : As the decade is coming to an end, it has seen an impressive 25x growth from a tiny $550 million in 2010 to $14.5 billion in 2019 in terms of the total funding raised by the start-ups.

This year start-ups raised $14.5 billion in 1185 funding rounds out of which 459 were Series A and late-stage investments, according to the ‘India Tech Annual Factsheet - 2019’ compiled by data analytics firm Tracxn. This is a significant jump from $10.5 billion raised by young ventures in 2018 and $10.4 billion in 2017.

There are 24 ‘unicorns’ or startups valued at more than $1 billion (each) and 155 ‘soonicorns’ or firms which hold the potential to become unicorns in the near future in the country. Out of these 9 ‘unicorns’ and 60 ‘soonicorns’ were formed this year, according to Tracxn. The latest entrants into the unicorn club included Bengaluru-based online grocery retailer BigBasket, Gurugram-based logistics startup Delhivery and Delhi-based eye-wear firm Lenskart whose valuation recently crossed $1.5 billion with the SoftBank deal.

This year Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank made massive investments in the Indian startups. The biggest funding round was raised by Gurugram-based hospitality firm Oyo Rooms which received $1.5 billion in Series F financing led by investors such as SoftBank, Sequoia and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Across the city, SoftBank along with investors like Ant Financial and Discovery Capital also invested $1 billion in digital payments company Paytm. The Noida-based firm competes with Google Pay, Amazon Pay and Walmart-owned PhonePe to tap the booming digital payments market in the country.

Business to business e-commerce, logistics and mobility companies also attracted a lot of capital from investors. This year, Delhivery secured $413 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund. SoftBank also pumped in $250 million in Ola Electric, the Bengaluru-based ride-hailing firm’s electric vehicle arm. The deal turned the company into a ‘unicorn’ almost overnight. Another Bengaluru-based firm Udaan, a business-to-business e-commerce platform raised $585 million in Series D financing round led by China’s Tencent, giving the firm a “post-money valuation in the range of $2.5 billion.

This year the fate of the e-pharmacy segment also hung in balance due to legal hurdles. However Mumbai-based online pharmacy startup PharmEasy secured $220 million in a fresh round of financing led by Singapore state investment firm Temasek.