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Investments in Indian start-ups plunge 57 per cent in May

Annapurani Chennai | Updated on June 02, 2020 Published on June 02, 2020

KhataBook, Lendingkart among top-funded companies

Investments in the Indian start-up ecosystem continued to fall in May due to Covid-19. They fell 57.3 per cent to $253.73 million last month, against $593.85 million in May 2019, according to data from Tracxn, a firm that tracks investments and financials of private companies and start-ups.

The number of companies that were funded also fell by more than half. Only 54 companies were funded last month, against 113 in the same period in 2019.

The top-funded sectors included fintech ($137.48 million), enterprise applications ($86.10 million), media and entertainment ($37.72 million) and retail ($28.07 million).

The consumer sector, which encompasses online and technology-enabled consumer-facing companies in the business-to-consumer (B2C) space, raised $134.39 million.

On the other hand, insurtech ($1.24 million), life sciences ($2.48 million), foodtech ($4.88 million), agriculture ($5.90 million) and enterprise infrastructure ($7.50 million) were among the least funded sectors in May 2020.

Furthermore, sectors such as auto tech, real estate and construction tech, energy tech, travel and hospitality tech did not receive any funding last month.

KhataBook, Lendingkart, Dailyhunt, OLA Money and Shiprocket were the top five funded companies in May 2020. The most active investors — based on their participation in equity funding rounds in May— included Sequoia Capital, Accel, InnoVen Capital, Trifecta Capital and Matrix Partners India.

Published on June 02, 2020

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