ETtech Deals Digest: No cheer in the new year as startups raise $36 million in first week of 2024

New-age companies are unlikely to have much to cheer about in 2024 if early funding figures are anything to go by.

Investments in startups in the first week of 2024 dropped by about 88% from the same period a year ago, totalling $35.8 million across eight deals. In volume terms, deals were down 86% from 59 a year earlier.

Sequentially, this amounted to a 10% fall in value terms and a 27% percent drop in volume.

Companies, across seed, early and late stages, had raised about $288 million in the period from December 30, 2022 to January 5, 2023, as per data from Tracxn.

The most significant amount of capital raised this week was in late-stage deals, which brought in about $33 million, accounting for 92.9% of the overall deal value.

The latest numbers come after a busy spell of dealmaking in December, which came as a twist at the end of 2023 – one of the weakest years for venture capital activity in India.

Top five deals:

Country Delight: The dairy brand raised $20 million in a series E round from new and existing investors.

Captain Fresh: The online meat and seafood startup raised $13.2 million in funding from Andhra Pradesh-based Nekkanti Sea Foods and investment firm Shakti Finvest.

Settl: The co-living services startup raised $1.20 million from investors including Gruhas and We Founder Circle.

DevDham: The devotional platform for temples raised $720,366 in a seed round, from Titan Capital, All In Capital, Veda VC and TDV Partners.

Larkai Healthcare: The med-tech company raised $500,000 in a seed funding round from investors FAAD Network and QI Ventures, among others.