Prominent US-based seed cash startup accelerator Y Combinator was the major startup investor in Q1 2021 in terms of the quantity of investment rounds. The accelerator-cum-investor, which had earlier backed Indian startups such as ClearTax, Innov8, Meesho, RazorPay, other folks, participated in 30 rounds vis-à-vis 15 rounds throughout the year-ago period, according to the information from analysis firm Tracxn. On the other hand, startup investment platform LetsVenture was the second major investor with 12 rounds throughout the quarter. Bigger startup funds such as Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners had produced 11 and 10 rounds respectively throughout the stated quarter even as the year-ago round volume was greater at 22 for Sequoia and 13 for Accel. This was reflected in the general round volume that contracted 27 per cent from 504 rounds in Q1 2020 to 368 in Q1 2021. Likewise, the startup funding worth also witnessed a 12.6 per cent decline from $5.40 billion to $4.72 billion throughout the stated period.
Early-stage investment, which normally records maximum deal rounds in comparison to mid and late-stage investments, saw the highest quantity of rounds at the seed stage. 204 rounds have been recorded at seed level when 54 rounds have been produced at the Series A stage. In terms of the deal worth or the quantity of funding, $1.1 billion was invested at Series C round followed by $975.59 million at Series C and $939 million at Series F throughout the initially quarter of the new calendar year.
Also study: Zomato, Byju’s, Dream11, other folks lead 85% PE-VC funding jump in Q1 2021 even as deal volume declines
The month-on-month development throughout Q1 2021 elevated from $749.64 million invested across 121 rounds in January to $1.77 billion in 118 rounds in February followed by $2.20 billion in 129 rounds in March. Overall, private equity and venture capital funding in India, according to information from Venture Intelligence, elevated about 85 per cent from $6.54 billion in Q1 2020 to $11.85 billion in Q1 2021 led by investments in startups such as Zomato, Byju’s, and Dream11. The deal volume had declined 21 per cent to 199 in Q1 2021 from 244 in Q1 2020.
“Startups are very important for India to become a $5-trillion economy. They bring innovative models and thereby create products and services that may not have existed earlier…they bring in creative destruction in the economy, and in any capitalist economy creative destruction is extremely important,” Chief Economic Advisor of India Krishnamurthy Subramanian had told TheSpuzz Online in an interview lately.