Indian Startups Raised $1.73 billion in Q1 2016, Says Xeler8

Indian startups have raised $1.73 billion (roughly Rs. 11,471 crores) across 344 deals from 312 investors in the first quarter of 2016, a significant uptick in terms of deal volume and total investment size against the last quarter, analysis from startup deal intelligence platform Xeler8 has revealed.

E-commerce, SaaS (software as a service) and health-tech startups cumulatively accounted for 47 percent of the deal value over the last quarter, seeing a cumulative investment of over $810 million (roughly Rs. 5,371 crores) across 103 startups. Fintech, Edutech, and food tech sectors saw high investor interest, seeing over 20 deals each over the last quarter.

The top 10 funding deals raised over a billion dollars, with five companies - travel booking portal Ibibo, e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, grocery delivery service Bigbasket, automotive listings platform CarTrade, and Edutech startup Byju's Classes seeing funding events of over $100 million (roughly Rs. 6,630 crores) over the last quarter.

The top deal makers were Indian Angel Network, Blume Ventures, Accel Partners, 500 Startups, and Beenext. Q1 2016 also saw 40 M&A deals, the most popular target segments were SaaS, health-tech, and local services.

(Also read: India's Top 7 Early Stage VC Firms)

Over 62 percent of the total deals i.e., 214 deals were at the seed and angel stage level (counting incubators and accelerators), and 56 investments were made by VC firms. 21 startups raised a Series A round. The quarter also saw two debt financing rounds raised by Flipkart and Paytm from HDFC and ICICI Bank respectively.