Indian Startups Raised 40% Fund From PhonePe and KreditBee Lead

In January, despite difficult socioeconomic conditions and a capital crunch 40% of funds were raised by Indian startups from PhonePe and KreditBee.

Growth-stage businesses signed 22 agreements totaling $926 million in the first month of 2023, according to data from Fintrackr, a branch of the startup news site Entrackr.

Twelve startups hid transaction data while 67 agreements worth $265 million were signed by early-stage startups.

The report states that the typical deal value for early-stage firms was close to $4 million.

The $350 million investment round for PhonePe and the $120 million funding round for KreditBee together accounted for over 40% of the entire financing in January.

More agreements were made in the e-commerce (including D2C companies) sector, and fintech maintained its dominance with $587 million in total funding.

Bengaluru ranked first in the report with 60 agreements, followed by Delhi-NCR with 15.

In January, there were 18 mergers and acquisitions across several sectors in the Indian startup ecosystem.

According to PwC India research, in 2022, funding for Indian startups was close to $24 billion, down 33% from CY21 but still more than twice as much as was raised in CY20 and CY19 combined.

According to the PwC India study, the average ticket size in growth-stage agreements was increased. 88% of the funding activity in CY22 came from deals for growth and late-stage funding (in value terms). According to PwC India research, in CY22, the average ticket size for agreements in the growth stage was $43 million and for deals in the late stage was $94 million.