Indian startups received $6.1 billion in funding in Q3CY21: Nasscom report

This is a quarterly fall of about 6%; greater focus towards late stage startups, accounting for over 50% of deal value

The technology startup ecosystem in India received $6.1 billion in funding in the third quarter of calendar year 2021, which was a quarterly fall of around 6 per cent, according to a report from industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

The "Tech Start-up: Quarterly Investment Factbook" (Q3 CY2021 Start-up deal analysis) covers trends around five key verticals- Fintech, Healthtech, Retailtech, EdTech and Enterprise tech.

There was an increased focus towards late stage startups, accounting for more than 50 per cent of the deal value. Among sectors, edtech and food tech dominated this quarter, accounting for more than 45 per cent of the deal value.

Among early stage startups, lower ticket size deals dominated funding, with only 14 deals above the $100 million value. Overall, there were 121 early stage startup funding deals.

The number of unicorns, or startups valued at $1 billion or more, continued to grow. In the quarter ended September 2021, India added 13 new unicorns, taking the total to 66. Five of the 13 unicorns added this quarter are in the edtech and fintech sectors.

The report further found that 15 per cent of the deals by volume catering to startups leveraged deep technology solutions. Business to consumer (B2C) startups raised more than $4.7 billion across 70 deals this quarter.