Funding for start-ups sees a pick-up, but crunch for sector not over yet

Early-stage fundraising has slowed down, late-stage is robust but raising money for Series-A/B/C remains tough

In the last few weeks, several start-ups raised money: Zomato, Swiggy, BigBasket, and Zoomcar were among the prominent names. Has the funding cycle turned for start-ups? The big deals may suggest so, but they don’t reflect the full story. 
 

While the outlook is positive, there’s hardly any sign of angel activity returning. According to a top executive of a venture capital (VC) firm, the pace of investment is picking up after the slowdown in 2016 and a large part of 2017. “Most of the discount and high-burn behaviour of the companies was rationalised during 2016 and 2017 and the surviving