Start-up funding slows down in 2019 after a two-fold surge previous year

After recording a surge of over 100 per cent in start-up funding in 2018, the year 2019 ended with a mere two per cent growth in value terms, even as the number of deals dropped.

According to Venture Intelligence data, venture capital investments in India stood at $8.9 billion across 656 deals in 2019 as compared to $8.7 billion in 2018 across 664 deals. The 2018 figure was higher by 102 per cent compared to 2017, when VC firms pumped in $4.3 billion across 623 deals.

The term venture capital embraces all investments from seed capital to Series-F funding in companies less than ten years old.

The IT & ITeS sector continues to drive investments, followed by BFSI, Logistics, travel and transport, and health care. Sequoia remains the most active VC investor, followed by Accel, Tiger Global (which stepped up investments big time from eight deals in 2018 to 27 deals in 2019), Blume Ventures and Matrix.