India’s effort to boost the startup ecosystem within the country is showing positive results amid the pandemic hit economy. As per the report by a consulting firm HexGn, the startups in India received nearly USD 10.14 billion in funding across more than 1,200 deals in the year 2020.
The report stated, The government’s flagship programs like Startup India, Invest India, AgNii and other such platforms to motiviate the ecosystem, have led the Indian startups to attract the investors’ confidence. Even though the funding received is less than that of received in the year 2019 (USD 14.5 billion), but the number of deals which took place are up by 20%.
The report states, “Weathering negative sentiment, seed stage investment deals grew by 50 per cent from USD 353 million over 420 deals in 2019 to USD 372 million over 672 deals in 2020. This is a good sign for people looking to plunge into startups, as early-stage investors are now keen to back risk-takers early on”.
Few highlights of the reports are:
- This is third year in a row that India is following US, China and the UK in the ranking.
- Globally startups rose over USD 308 billion. US was the top gainer with USD 165 billion.
- The Bengaluru (USD 4.3 billion), Delhi NCR (USD 3 billion) and Mumbai (USD 2 billion) attracted India’s 90% investment.
- In India ecommerce attracted USD 3 billion, fintech got USD 2.37 billion and edtech received USD 1.52 billion.
- The biggest gainer for the year was the edtech sector, which grew by four folds from USD 380 million in 2019.
- Sectors like transportation and logistics, and Travel and tourism saw a dip of 90% in investment as compared to the 2019.
- Zomato with USD 1.02 billion led the maximum investment attracted in India, followed by Byju’s (USD 922 million), Phonepe (USD 807 million), Unacademy (USD 260 million) and Ecom Express (USD 250 million).