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PhonePe and G-Pay dominate UPI volume in July; Navi sees 2X spike

EntrackrEntrackr · 11m ago
PhonePe and G-Pay dominate UPI volume in July; Navi sees 2X spike
Medial

Unified payments interface (UPI) saw a 3.95% month-on-month growth in volume to 14.44 billion in July from 13.89 billion in June. While PhonePe and Google Pay maintained their market share in the last month, Paytm registered a minor decline. As per data published by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), PhonePe clocked 6.98 billion transactions in July followed by Google Pay and Paytm with 5.34 billion and 1.12 billion transactions, respectively. This translates into 48.3% market share for PhonePe, 37% for Google and 7.82% for Paytm. In June, PhonePe had 48.3% market share in UPI as of June followed by Google Pay and Paytm with 36.7% and nearly 8% market share. Value wise, PhonePe’s market share declined from 50.27% in June to 49.85% in July and Paytm’s market share also fell by a small margin to 5.98%. Google Pay’s value market share improved from 35% to 35.6%. The decline in market share for top players can be attributed to the entry of new players such as CRED, NAVI, Groww, Slice and Flipkart UPI which have been eating up a decent chunk of the volumes of leading apps. As per NPCI data, CRED was the fourth largest player in UPI, accompanied by Axis Bank Apps, Amazon Pay, Navi, ICICI Bank Apps, Fampay by Trio, and Kotak Mahindra Bank Apps. After much hype, WhatsApp Pay managed to get 11th position ahead of other notable apps such as BHIM, Groww, Slice, MobiKwik and Flipkart UPI. Among the new players, Sachin Bansal-led Navi nearly doubled its transactions from 35 million in June to 68 million in July. UPI is set to reach new heights in the coming months as it crossed the milestone of processing 500 million transactions daily for three times in August. Overall, this [August 5] was the fourth instance when UPI has crossed the milestone since its inception in April 2016. Notably, NPCI has set a target of clocking 1 billion transactions per day by 2026-27.

How Fampay's Rs 200 Cr bet on fintech for teenagers fell flat

EntrackrEntrackr · 11m ago
How Fampay's Rs 200 Cr bet on fintech for teenagers fell flat
Medial

Narratives are considered as important as the business plan for startups. And fintech startup Fampay sold its narrative very well. During the funding boom of 2021 it raised $38 million in what’s been one of the largest series A funding rounds. The firm’s pitch-to target the teens below 18 years of age found ready takers among venture funds, including Elevation Capital, Peak XV (formerly Sequoia Capital), General Catalyst. How things will pan out for a startup that’s high on narrative but low on core business fundamentals is anyone’s guess. An abrupt pivot From a peak of 10 million users in 2022, Fampay’s troubles stem from a single event – when IDFC Bank pulled the rug out from under it in February 2023 as its payments partner. This forced account holders to exhaust their balance within a short deadline. It was all downhill from there, as not only did Fampay lose its not-so-loyal users acquired at a high cost, but also struggled to recover from the blow. This is not the first time and won’t be the last time teenagers surprise those who thought they have figured them out. Fampay, however, is still struggling to come to terms with the losses it suffered. Two years after the mammoth fundraise, Fampay pivoted to become a UPI-focused app (TPAP like PhonePe and Paytm) in March 2023. The pivot was much needed for the survival of the firm which burnt over Rs 200 crore on the abandoned biz. The Bengaluru-based firm lost Rs 120 crore alone in FY23 with a single digit revenue figure. Numbers unmask the dud Fampay finally published its annual financial statement for FY23 with the RoC after a year-long delay. The five-year-old fintech firm reported Rs 7.7 crore in revenue. Income from commissions and partnerships accounted for 50% of the total operating revenue, which stood at Rs 3.8 crore in FY23. Meanwhile, payment facilitation brought in Rs 1.3 crore, whereas subscription fees added another Rs 2.8 crore to the company’s coffers. The Peak XV-backed firm’s employee benefits surged 2.95X to Rs 65 crore in FY23. This cost is more or less going to be much smaller in the following fiscal as the firm laid off some of its staff at all levels in April. Moving on, Fampay’s marketing spends jumped 2.7X to Rs 41 crore in FY23. The burn on legal, subscription, technology, traveling, and other overheads took the company’s overall cost to Rs 137 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023 from Rs 51 crore in FY22. Importantly, the company extended an unsecured loan of Rs 55 crore to Pehe Limited to acquire Tri O Tech Solution Private Limited ( a wholly owned subsidiary of Pehe) with a PPI license, at a 6% interest rate for one year. However, after a year of non-payment, the timeline was extended, with the interest rate increased to 7.6%. With a marginal revenue and a baggage of mounting expenditures, Fampay’s losses surged 2.8X to Rs 120 crore in FY23 from Rs 43 crore in FY22. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin worsened to -67.4% and -700%, respectively. On a unit level, it spent Rs 17.79 to earn a rupee in FY23. Fampay has raised $48 million to date including its $38 million led by Elevation Capital in 2021. According to the data intelligence platform TheKredible, Peak XV, Elevation Capital, and Venture Highway are the notable investors in the company. Post pivot, Fampay entered the top 10 list of UPI-based payments apps in November last year. As per data published by NPCI, Fampay registered more than 50 million transactions through UPI in July 2024. It surpassed other apps such as BHIM, WhatsApp, MobiKwik and Flipkart UPI. Do or die, or just sell? A selloff, rather than survival, seems to be the plausible route Fampay is headed for, assuming that suitors are available for it. Having burnt so much on its original premise, even as the firm seems to have done a decent job of cracking the UPI payments code, it might be too little, too late. One would have to assume that the final throw of the dice for this firm is to do well enough on the UPI pivot, and show enough momentum for a suitor to consider it a worthwhile acquisition. Like many firms in the space, Fampay would have had a much better chance if the government/RBI had finally relented on allowing UPI providers some leeway on charging fees for their services, but until that division hangs in the air, the company might just hang up its boots in the business.

Chaos at Saarthi.ai: Mass layoffs, unpaid salaries, and CEO's passport theft

EntrackrEntrackr · 11m ago
Chaos at Saarthi.ai: Mass layoffs, unpaid salaries, and CEO's passport theft
Medial

Deeptech startup Saarthi.ai has been going through troubles over the past year as it failed to pay long due salaries of past and current employees. At the same time, the firm also reduced its workforce by more than 70%. As per Entrackr sources, Saarthi.ai reduced its workforce to 40 from 140 since March 2023 and most of these employees are waiting for their salary. Moreover, the firm has not remitted the tax deducted at source (TDS) to the government for the last two fiscal years. In July 2023, a PTI report highlighted the layoffs at the company and long pending dues of the employees without divulging much details. Saarthi.ai’s chief executive Vishwa Nath Jha also said that pending salaries will be cleared in three months. “The firm has been holding salaries of more than 50 employees for over a year now and even didn’t reply to legal notices. ​​The founder has been unresponsive and even mentioned that he doesn’t owe us any explanation on multiple occasions,” said a former employee requesting anonymity. Entrackr talked to about a dozen employees who were associated with Saarthi.ai and are yet to receive their pending salaries. Responding to Entrackr’s queries, Jha confirmed that Saarthi.ai reduced its workforce to 40 due to pressure from investors. However, he claims that these layoffs were carried out before September last year. Jha also admitted that Saarthi.ai didn’t deposit TDS on behalf of employees for the last two fiscal years. “The startup is still not generating surplus cash to clear long-standing dues. We have been transparent in our communications with the concerned ex-team members. We are working hard to become operationally cash flow positive by Q2 of 2024 to sustain company operations and support our current team members. Additionally, Saarthi.ai is actively in talks with investors to raise fresh capital to address outstanding debts and liabilities,” said Jha. Launched by Jha, Sameer Sinhaa, and Sangram Sabat in 2017, Saarthi.ai specializes in conversational AI for low resource and global languages for Indic, South Asian, Arabic, and European users. The Bangalore-based startup was funded by Kunal Shah’s QED Innovation Labs, Capri Global Capital, Lead Angels Network, among others. Notably, the firm is facing a crunch at a time when AI startups saw an upsurge in funding. A former employee of the company added that the firm is still operational with paying clients and has been clearing its loans to banks but not prioritizing the dues of employees. Sharing screenshots, the person added that Saarthi.ai has also been looking for new hirings as he got messages from freshers for referrals at the company. Commenting on allegations of deliberately delaying salaries, Jha said that these claims are untrue and seems to be a plot to defame and harm Saarthi. “We’re planning to fill key positions as it negotiates deals [business] with several banks and NBFCs,” he added. Jha also claimed that a former senior employee stole his passport with a US visa, attempting to prevent him from traveling to the country to raise fresh capital. “While I managed to reissue a new passport, I am yet to get the US visa again. It’s a long queue,” said Jha.

Edtech startup PhysicsWallah to launch 26 Vidyapeeth offline centres

Economic TimesEconomic Times · 1y ago
Edtech startup PhysicsWallah to launch 26 Vidyapeeth offline centres
Medial

Edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah on Friday said it is launching 26 offline centres across India, in as many cities. The centres are called PW Vidyapeeth. Currently, the Noida-based startup has 67 centres operational in 38 cities. The offline centres will offer a curriculum for engineering and medical entrance examinations. “By expanding our tech enabled offline Vidyapeeth Centres across cities, our goal is to ensure access to quality education for students in their own towns, eliminating the need for them to relocate to education hubs in distant cities,” said Ankit Gupta, CEO of the startup’s offline centres vertical. The company had reportedly rolled out 50 offline centres in May this year, with an investment of around Rs 82 crore in technologies. In July, it launched the PW Institute of Innovation (PW IOI), a four-year residential programme in computer science and AI.Founded by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah gained unicorn status last year, when it raised $100 million in its maiden funding round from WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures, at a valuation of more than $1.1 billion. For the financial year through March 2022, it reported standalone operating revenue of Rs 232.48 crore, a nine-fold increase from the previous year. Net profit for FY22 increased to Rs 97.8 crore from Rs 6.93 crore. Also read | Upskilling companies see brisk business as K-12, test prep stall The broader offline play Post-pandemic, edtech startups have been reeling under the pressure as demand for online and digital education in the K-12 and examination preparation has gone down. This has prompted players such as Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu to invest in offline centres.While Unacademy announced multiple rounds of layoffs, it also expanded its offline centres from 10 to around 58, in the first half of 2023. Vedantu also counts its hybrid centres as one of its key growth levers. The Tiger Global-backed startup had bought a majority stake in offline test prep business Deeksha for $40 million. ET had reported in December about how major edtechs across the board are expected to move away from the K-12 business model and focus on priorities such as a bigger offline play in 2023. In Byju’s case, its 302 offline tuition centres across 143 towns also double up as office spaces. Each has an office room for sales staff. This has helped ease the Bengaluru-based startup’s real estate spaces consolidation plans that have gone hand-in-hand with its layoffs. Experience Your Economic Times Newspaper, The Digital Way!Front PagePure PoliticsCompanies & EconomyCompaniesLearn more about our print editionMoreRIL may Sell 8-10% More in Rel Retail VenturesReliance Industries is likely to sell another 8-10% stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) to fund expansion, retire debt and prepare for the initial public offering of the conglomerate’s retail business, two senior industry executives aware of the plans said.Brics Set to Add 6 New Members from N Africa, Gulf and LatAmBrics is set to add heft to the grouping of emerging economies as it announced on Thursday the inclusion of six new members, including India’s key partners in the Gulf and North Africa, a development that Prime Minister Narendra Modi described as a message that “all global institutions need to transform considering the changing times”.Strong Signals from Investors, Vi may Get Much-needed Cash SoonVodafone Idea (Vi) is closer to tying up its much-delayed equity funding with chief executive Akshaya Moondra informing the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that the telco has term sheets from several potential investors. Read More News onphysicswallahoffline centresedtechunicornvidyapeeth centres Stay on top of technology and startup news that matters. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest and must-read tech news, delivered straight to your inbox. InvestingGQG Partners rescues Adani stocks from Deloitte fiasco. But primary fundraise is a bigger issue.Under the lensHow Ireo’s Lalit Goyal allegedly siphoned off INR1,800 crore to his offshore entitiesEconomyThe phoenix-like rise of private capex, and why we should thank ‘creative destruction’ for this

Exclusive: ReshaMandi faces complete layoffs, website shutdown, and auditor red flag

EntrackrEntrackr · 11m ago
Exclusive: ReshaMandi faces complete layoffs, website shutdown, and auditor red flag
Medial

The road for ReshaMandi appears to have come to an end as the firm has laid off its entire workforce, sources close to the firm told Entrackr. Significantly, the Creation Investments-backed firm’s website has been down for the past week, coinciding with the resignation of its auditor. “It’s all over for ReshaMandi,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “The company is struggling to pay liabilities and bear operational costs including salaries for the past several months.” Team Entrackr has also been trying to access its website since Wednesday last week but it’s not working until the press time. ReshaMandi has been embroiled in corporate governance issues including revenue inflation and fake invoices among others. A few alarming issues were also highlighted by its auditor Walker Chandiok & Co LLP which also resigned last month, the regulatory filing accessed from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows. The auditor stated that Saurabh Kumar Agarwal, the CTO, and founder, acknowledged the firm’s financial struggles, including downsizing operations, reducing staff, and the inability to support the audit firm’s efforts to complete the financial statements for FY23. Filings reveal that ReshaMandi owes Rs 14.16 lakh to the auditing firm for services offered. Meanwhile, the Bengaluru-based company also appointed a new auditor Suresh Kapoor & Associates in late July. ReshaMandi also saw back to back resignations of its chief financial officers (CFO). In April 2023, the firm appointed former KPMG CFO Samadrita Chakravarty as its group CFO who took over Ritesh Kumar. Kumar served as CFO between March 2022 to January 2023. As per an Inc42 report, Chakravarty also quit the firm in October last year. Commenting on Entrackr’s queries, a ReshaMandi spokesperson said, “ReshaMandi is facing some financial difficulties and has streamlined its staff, operations and processes to focus on collecting its pending receivables from the market. We continue to believe in coming out of this situation strong and be able to get back on track soon.” The company’s co-founder Mayank Tiwari chose not to address the specific question about the layoffs. ReshaMandi has raised more than $50 million including a $30 million Series A round in October 2021. In June 2022, it also initiated a new funding round and raised a $6.2 million debt in November 2022. The firm’s investors include Creation Investments, Omnivore, 9 Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Northern Arc, Innoven Capital, and Stride Ventures. As per media reports, it was reportedly in talks to raise $5 million at much lower valuation to clear the long pending salaries of employees. However, the deal did not materialize. For a firm that claimed to be on course for Rs 1,900 crore in gross revenues in FY23, the fall is certainly a surprise, however skeptical many in the market might have been about its numbers. It does seem to be a case of flying too high for a better valuation, only to be burnt by the reality of its operating market and poor processes for Reshamandi. For any startup chasing growth only for the next round of funding and higher valuation, this is a perennial existential risk, when a potential investor (Temasek in this case) decides to move back or wait it out. Even though some might say that the whole drive for the next round and valuations is frequently driven by investors themselves. Temasek has clearly seen something that convinced it to take a break even if that might mean curtains for ReshaMandi.

uEngage aspires to be Shopify for restaurants in India

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
uEngage aspires to be Shopify for restaurants in India
Medial

If you’re a new restaurant owner, you will probably get your joint listed on Zomato and Swiggy at the earliest. The listing helps with instant discoverability in the operational area and access to the delivery fleet among other benefits. The catch, however, is the steep commission charges restaurant owners have to pay these food aggregator platforms. This is one of the reasons why you see different pricing on Zomato and restaurants’ own menu cards. Chandigarh-based uEngage is looking to fix this exact problem for restaurant owners in the country. The startup offers a wide range of services such as Edge (which lets you start your own ordering app), Flash (which helps manage deliveries and riders), and Prism (which helps automate marketing). The startup is also active on ONDC, enabling businesses to join the open network for digital commerce. We spoke to uEngage CEO and founder Sameer Sharma to learn more about his platform, what it is trying to accomplish, and future roadmap. Here are the edited excerpts: What are the key problems that uEngage is trying to address? When Zomato, Swiggy, and other aggregators entered the picture, we couldn’t understand why they kept increasing commissions and pressuring merchants. Initially, it was 14%, which seemed high. Now, it’s beyond 22% for a major list of merchants, with some newer brands facing rates up to 32-35%. But that’s just the beginning. Beyond base commissions, there are additional costs like payment gateway charges, marketing click payments, often without clear, and cancellation charges without go ahead from the merchant. Recently, I met a leading Zomato-listed restaurant in Chandigarh. Despite generating sales worth Rs 30 lakh, they received only Rs 14.91 lakh, over 50% of their revenue. This has been happening for a while, and this is why we started uEngage. While aggregators offer great technology, demand generation, and modern logistics, there are downsides. Merchants lose control over brand positioning, customer relationship and face significant financial constraints. While aggregators aren’t necessarily evil, there’s much at stake for restaurants in the given circumstances. Please touch upon how the platform works, and how your growth has been so far? uEngage is Like Shopify for restaurants. Being a food-specific platform, we have been able to go deeper and offer extensive plug n play solutions to our restaurant partners. Initially launched as digital ordering platform for restaurants, uEngage has extended the platform into 3 different products covering: Direct Ordering (Mobile Apps, SEO First Websites, WhatsApp Ordering and KIOSk Ordering) – uEngage EDGE Customer Marketing and Omni Channel Loyalty – uEngage PRISM Last Mile Delivery and Tracking (Self Delivery and 3PL) – uEngage Flash At one end we have integrated industry leading POS and Billing Players like Petpooja , POSIST, Urban Piper, TM Bill, etc. to make life simpler for outlet staff, on the other end, we work closely with leading logistics players such as Dunzo, Zomato Xtreme (Zomato’s B2B service), Shadowfax, Loadshare, and Rapido. Together, they form a comprehensive Direct Ordering stack, including commerce, marketing, and logistics components. This ecosystem enables us to provide a holistic solution to our clients. As far as our financial growth goes, last year, our revenue stood at Rs 5.7 crore. This year, we anticipate closing it around Rs 13 crore to Rs 14 crore. This year, we’re projecting a GMV of around Rs 310 crore rupees for our brands. Orders from partner platforms to our revenue; they belong to the respective brands. However, they contribute to the GMV we generate for them. Our focus as a bootstrap company remains on profitability, and we’ve been profitable for more than two years now. Regarding our partnerships, we currently work with close to 4,000 outlets for our Direct Ordering Business and overall 15000+ Outlets for all our offerings including ONDC. What are your plans for the ONDC network? The ONDC is still at a nascent stage but a significant contributor to our revenue. Currently, we have around 15,000 outlets. Our target is to reach 50,000 outlets within the next three to four quarters.

Indian startups raise nearly $1.6 Bn in August

EntrackrEntrackr · 10m ago
Indian startups raise nearly $1.6 Bn in August
Medial

The Indian startup ecosystem seems to be bouncing back from the funding winter as venture capital investment has been steadily rising each month. August 2024 has been a standout, with several big funding rounds, important investments in growth-stage startups, many deals from tier II cities, IPOs, and major mergers and acquisitions. These factors make it unique compared to other months this year. Based on data compiled by TheKredible, homegrown startups raised nearly $1.6 billion across 112 deals in August. This total included 27 growth-stage deals worth $1.32 billion and 71 early-stage deals amounting to $267 million. Meanwhile, there were 14 undisclosed transactions mainly in early-stage deals. When compared, startups raised close to $1 billion in July. [Y-o-Y and M-o-M trend] The $1.6 billion raised in August is the second-highest funding amount of 2024, following June, and the third-highest in the past 12 months. On a year-over-year basis, August 2024 also ranked at the top for total funds raised. Also, Indian startups have raked in approximately $9.6 billion in the first eight months of 2024. If this trend persists, overall funding is likely to comfortably surpass the $11 billion achieved in 2023. For context, Indian startups received $38 billion in funding in 2021 and $25 billion in 2022. [Top 10 growth-stage deals] Among growth-stage deals, Zepto’s $340 million, DMI Finance’s $334 million, and OYO’s $175 million rounds together accounted for over 50% of the total funds raised last month. With the fresh funding, Zepto and DMI Finance attained $5 billion and $3 billion valuation milestones respectively. However, OYO saw more than 75% fall in its valuation to $2.4 billion from a peak of $10 billion. Just like in July, August saw the emergence of a new unicorn, as the Hero Moto-backed Ather Energy surpassed the $1 billion valuation mark with its latest funding round. Other notable growth-stage deals included Neo, Blue Tokai, Visit Health, Yubi, Livpure, and Syfe. Swiggy, which raised funds from Amitabh Bachchan’s Family Office, did not disclose the deal size. [Top 10 early-stage deals] EV startup Kinetic Green led the early-stage funding chart with a $25 million Series A round, followed by Even Healthcare with $20 million, FreshBus with $10.5 million, and both Beco and Investors AI, each raising $10 million. Agrizy’s $9.8 million funding was the fourth-largest in agritech for 2024, a sector that has been declining recently. Other major early-stage deals included Scimplify, a specialty chemicals firm; Kindlife, a new venture from ShopClues co-founder Radhika Ghai; automotive startup Kazam; and fintech startup Punch, all of which ranked among the top 10 early-stage investments. [Mergers and Acquisitions] In August, the number of merger and acquisition deals surged to 19, up from just 17 in July. Notably, the acquisition of Paytm’s movies and ticketing business by Zomato Limited for $244 million emerged as one of the largest M&A deals of 2024. Additionally, hospitality firm OYO acquired Checkmyguest for $27.4 million, and Fusebox Games Limited was purchased by Nazara in a $27.2 million deal. Some notable M&A deals in August included BrowserStack’s acquisition of Bird Eats Bug, Radio Mirchi’s parent ENIL’s purchase of Gaana, and VerSe’s acquisition of Valueleaf. Additionally, Emami Limited raised its stake in The Man Company from 50.4% to 100%, a development first reported by Entrackr in July. [City and segment-wise deals] In terms of city-wise funding, Bengaluru-based startups led with 38 deals totaling $265 million in August. However, startups in Delhi-NCR raised $724 million across 29 deals, more than double the amount raised by Bengaluru startups. Additionally, Mumbai-based startups surpassed Bengaluru in total funding, securing $453 million across 20 deals. Segment-wise, fintech startups led the show with 27 deals followed by e-commerce (including D2C brands), healthtech, SaaS, and proptech with 16, 8, 7, and 4 deals, respectively. Visit TheKredible for more details. Edtech was one of the least funded segments with 3 deals amounting to $5 million. It contributed only 0.3% to the total amount raised in August. [Stage-wise deals] Regarding funding stages, 35 startups raised capital in the seed round, 28 in Series A, 13 in pre-Series A, and 9 in Series B. Debt-only funding made up 2.56% of the total funding for the month. For the complete breakdown of stage-wise deals, visit TheKredible. [Layoffs, shutdowns, departures, and key hirings] Layoffs experienced a significant drop from 650 employees in July to 290 employees in August. Notably, Google and Reliance-backed Dunzo reportedly fired 150 employees, Beepkart let go of 100 staff, and ShareChat reduced its workforce by 30-40 employees. Additionally, Kenko Health, My Tirth India, and Airtel’s streaming app Wynk Music shut down their operations. Wynk’s closure is attributed to increasing competition, while Kenko Health and My Tirth India ceased operations due to funding difficulties. In August, there was an increase in both hiring and the departure of key executives. Notable exits included Manish Tiwary from Amazon India, Prashant Sinha from Metadome.ai, and Srinivasagopalan Ramamurthy from Freshworks. On the hiring front, Meesho, Swiggy Instamart, EvenFlow, Zetwerks, Perfios, and OYO brought new talent into roles such as chief executive, co-founder, and independent director, among others. [Trends] More IPOs in pipeline: In the first eight months of 2024, ten startups have gone public. In August alone, Ola Electric, Unicommerce, and FirstCry completed their IPOs. Swiggy is targeting a listing in the first week of September, while companies like Infra.Market, Bluestone, Ecom Express, OfBusiness, and OYO are also progressing on their IPO plans. Additionally, Zappfresh has filed draft IPO papers with SEBI to list on the BSE SME platform. Quick commerce in action: The quick commerce sector is intensifying in competition, highlighted by Zepto’s mega-round, Flipkart’s recent entry, and BigBasket’s complete shift to rapid delivery. Amazon is expected to enter the market early next year. The e-commerce giant was also in talks to acquire Swiggy’s quick commerce business. At present, Zomato-owned Blinkit stands as the leading player in quick commerce followed by Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, and Tata Digital-owned BigBasket. Startups from tier II cities: In addition to major metro areas and startup hubs such as Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, there has been a notable influx of deals from cities like Mangalore, Raipur, Dehradun, Udaipur, Surat, Jodhpur, Nashik, and Lucknow. This indicates a significant, albeit minor, shift in traditional startup funding patterns. Founders fueling growth: OYO’s $175 million funding round included a significant $100 million investment from the company’s founder, Ritesh Agarwal, showcasing another instance of a founder investing in their own startup. Similarly, Yubi secured $30 million from its founder and CEO, Gaurav Kumar, while Cambrian Bioworks received an undisclosed amount from its founder during its seed round. This practice of founder investment has previously been seen with Ather Energy, Byju’s, and BluSmart. [Conclusion] While the decline of debt funding is something to be welcomed, as it doesn’t seem to sit well with the idea of backing startups, we would add a note of caution here on the sustainability of the current recovery. While, as indicated earlier, an expected interest rate cut by the US Fed will ensure the momentum stays well into 2025, the fact remains that significant parts of public markets are well into ‘exuberance’ territory in terms of valuations. Unlike the public markets, however, the private VC markets remain much more dependent on foreign fund flows, and that could yet be a disruptor in the ecosystem, despite the rise of domestic capital. Although with the US-China issues, and now, even Brazil moving arbitrarily against Twitter, India could find itself in a sweet spot yet again for global investors. It would perhaps be fair to say that the bottom has been reached, and a bounce is well on its way for Indian startups when it comes to their funding environment.

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