According to the data analytics firm, Tracxn, there has been a decline of 29% in Startup funding activity to $4.2 billion in the first half of 2020. In 2019, it was $5.9 billion during the same period. Therefore, Indian startups are witnessing a downsize in funding activity amid coronavirus pandemic. A small number of companies have received funding between January and June.
As per Tracxn’s India Tech Semi-Annual Factsheet, only 443 companies have received funding. Whereas, last year, 725 companies had secured funding for the same duration. In the first half of 2020, only three startups have received a ‘unicorn’ tag, each one valued at over $1 billion against six startups in H12019. These three startups are – FirstCry, Pine Labs, and Nykaa. FirstCry is an online baby products store, Pine Labs is a financial tech company and Nykaa is a beauty products e-tailer.
On the other hand, Byju, Unacademy, and Bounce have received funding. Both Byju and Unacademy, are edtech companies whereas Bounce is scooter sharing company. Tracxn cited that 28 companies had the potential to cross the $1 billion valuation mark soon in H12019. But in H12020, it has lowered to 17. Tracxn stated, “alternative lending and test preparation technology were the spaces that generated the maximum interest and saw large increases in funding.”
In H12020, all the companies that are in the test preparation technology space have recorded a total investment of $666.2 million, therefore, up of 538%. However, Companies in the alternative lending sectors such as Navi, Lendingkart, and InCred have elevated $704.5 million in H12020. This implies the investments are 67 percent higher than those recorded in the same period last year.
