Indian Startups

Addressing the gathering at the startup conclave organised by Money Control in Bengaluru, both the founders stressed that investors and founders may have overestimated the potential size of the Indian market. “The actual monetisable market size is a subset of 100 million. India is a developing country and evolving very fast, but as of now it is a subset of 100 million," said Kamath.

India is currently home to 83 unicorns, 51 gazelles (most likely to go unicorn within three years) and 96 cheetahs (to achieve unicorn status in five years), according to the 'ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2023' report. It is a ranking of India’s startups founded in the 2000s, worth at least $200 million, not yet listed on a public exchange and most likely to ‘go Unicorn’ in the next five years.

Out of the over 2,500 startups that had raised seed funding between 2015 and 2022, only 29 per cent (i.e., 734 companies) managed to raise a Series A round (typically the first round of institutional Venture Capital funding), the study titled 'Series A Landscape Report' found.

Our channel checks also confirm this trend. Rural growth has remained sluggish while urban consumption has also softened. We expect most companies in our staples coverage to report double-digit EBITDA growth helped by sales growth and margin improvement. While general consumption trends remained muted, we expect 4QFY23 to be a strong quarter for Indian FMCG companies, as the benefits of past price hikes should drive double-digit revenue growth, while the cool-off in raw material prices and lower than usual advertisement spends should help margins, BNP Paribas India said.

Existing investors, including the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs) and Viking Global Investors, also participated in the round. This investment, said the company, will fuel the continued deployment of AlphaSense's advanced AI capabilities, including generative AI that dramatically speeds up the research process for business and financial professionals.

There were no new unicorns created in the January-March period, compared with 14 unicorns in Q1 2022, according to the report by Tracxn, a leading global market intelligence platform. The funding volumes contracted due to the reduction in late-stage funding, which declined by 79 per cent in the first quarter ($1.8 billion) compared to Q1 2022.

The Financial Express reported, citing sources, that homegrown startups have processed fund transfers "worth $250-300 million in the past 24 hours". Industry players said that for funds transfer, firms need to first open new business bank accounts in the US as SVB still hasn't resumed direct foreign transfers.

Out of the 2,200 women-led startups in India that have received funding, 36 per cent have progressed to the Series A stage, and 24 per cent have gone on to Series D stage or beyond, according to Tracxn, a leading market intelligence platform. The number of active investors investing in women-led startups has seen a steady increase since 2010, with a sharp year-on-year jump of 42 per cent in 2021, the findings showed.

One significant challenge, which needs attention this International Women's Day, is equitable funding for women-led enterprises and women impact businesses. According to Traxcn database, only 2 per cent of female only founded companies and 26.2% companies with female co-founders received any funding.

So far, ESOPDhan has lent Rs 20 crore to 15 Bengaluru and Hyderabad-based employees of two US-based high growth tech companies. Set up by veteran investors Shravan Shroff and Nitin Agarwal, the firm seeks to ease the acquisition of stock options by employees of high-growth SaaS startups.Our experience with startup teams over the years threw up many concerns of employees rewarded with ESOPs.