The money is still flowing into the start -up ecosystem of India – simply where it did. In a marked passage compared to the recent years, investors are now focusing more on companies established with proven commercial models, which makes the path more difficult for innovators in the start -up phase.
Funding at an early stage, which includes seeds, angels and series A, almost halved its advanced activity in 2021-2022. While the financing activity, which includes the total number of offers and financing amounts, has increased growth in growth and late end – two in terms of financing and competition.
The figures tell the story: Funding at an early stage softened to $ 3 billion in 1,533 offers until November 2024, against 4 billion dollars spread over 2,137 offers during the same period ‘Last year, according to Yourself Analysis of tracxn data. This reduced the total start -up investments to $ 15.9 billion, compared to $ 16.5 billion in annual shift, while financing for growth and late stadium increased to $ 13 billion in 2024, against 12.4 billion dollars in 2023.
Recent transactions highlight this development towards investments at a subsequent stage: the Zepto trade in trade platform has obtained $ 665 million in series F in June, while the Rapido driving platform raised 200 Millions of dollars in its series E series in September. These companies are among several IPOs potential Lorties in the near future.
The slowdown in the first steps
The current drop in funding at an early stage is a delay in market trends in the last two years. “Not enough companies have been funded in the past two years. So see enough companies from two to four years in itself is a bit delicate because we don’t have the offer,” said Anurag Ramdasan, Partner at the start of the 3ONE4 Capital placement firm stadium.


2024 Funding for the year up to date is a hollow of six years
This bottleneck comes from the winter of funding that started at the end of 2022 and lasted until 2023, which today led to fewer startups ready for the A series. While pre-grief funding and the Seed remains “quite decent”, according to Ramdasan, the financing of series A and series B is the place where the slowdown has happened “, although it has started to resume in the latter quarters.
The elevation of financing in 2021 and 2022 saw investors, post-paymic, supporting several startups in the sectors. Today, they adopt a more measured approach, waiting to see how these funded startups work before supporting new businesses in the same ecosystem.


Funding at an early stage, which includes seeds, angels and series A, is recovered more slowly compared to the growth and conclusion of a late floor
Global factors in play
The investment landscape in India cannot be considered in isolation, especially when more than 85% of the financing of startups comes from foreign sources. “Dollar capital still does not come back importantly to invest in startups,” notes Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner of Ivycap Ventures.
The flow of dollars remains cautious, influenced by various global factors. GUPTA points to exchange rate fluctuations as a large factor affecting the foreign capital flow. “People have not yet seen India as a complete replacement of China; so there are many areas where people consider India as a longer -term opportunity against China plus a strategy. Consequently , Dollar capital still does not move to India in an important way, as expected earlier.
Revival of the growth stadium
Despite these challenges, investments in growth, which include those of series B and C, have increased, affecting $ 3.5 billion in 209 offers in the first 11 months of 2024, against 3.4 billion dollars out of 225 offers the previous year. This indicates strong investor confidence in startups that have established product and customers, in the midst of a trend of startups supported by companies that become public to more modest assessments.
For example, the manufacturer of electric vehicles Ola Electric estimated its IPO of a discount of approximately 22% compared to its latest evaluation of $ 4.3 billion, while the FirstCry retailer kept its assessment flat About $ 3 billion for its IPO.
“Investors believe that any investment in late stadium could technically be for a company that could reach the scene of the IPO for the next two to three years. This is what stimulates enthusiasm,” explains Ashish Kumar, Co-founder and general partner at Fundementum, an investment company in terms of growth. He adds that the general health of companies at an advanced stage has improved in terms of profitability profile.
“It also disrupts the growth stage.”
Investors are now moving away from the focusing of the sector with regard to funding, leaving new startups to come to maturation sectors in search of capital. For example, there may have been seven or eight companies in the early phase of a certain sector that have received funding in recent years, which has led to increased competition and over-funding in a certain industry.
According to Kumar, the venture capital is waiting to observe the growth and performance of these startups and see how competition takes place between them to determine the startup to be financed at a later stage. Consequently, funding is now focused on growth companies and late stages compared to those at the start.