Indian startup funding in H1CY23 drops 36% to lowest in 4 yrs: PwC

Indian startup ecosystem funding fell 36 percent to just $3.8 billion across 298 deals in the first half (H1) of 2023 compared to the second half of the previous calendar year, which saw investments of $5.9 billion, according to a recent report by Price. Waterhouse Coopers.

Fintech, Software as a Service (SaaS), and D2C continued to be the most funded sectors in the first half of 2020.

“Funding winter is just the season in a startup’s journey. There is a slowdown in startup funding despite large untapped capital reserves held by venture capitalists. Amit Naoka, Partner, Deals and Indian Startup Lead, PwC India, said: “Venture capital firms active in India have raised new funds in the past year, and we can expect the pace of investments to pick up in the next few months.”

“In the meantime, there has been an increase in the due diligence that investors do before making investments, both in terms of detail as well as coverage — from typical financing and legal, to areas such as technology, human resources and business operations — to ensuring that startups have a strong governance framework in place. companies.”

The report said that over the past few quarters, despite difficult financing market conditions, investors have shown strong support for their portfolio companies by doubling their investments in companies that have shown positive growth.