ETtech Deals Digest: September brings some cheer as funding more than doubles sequentially

Even as funding challenges persist among India-based technology upstarts, September logged a huge uptick in overall deal sizes with $960.5 million deployed across 75 funding rounds.

In terms of value, the month outperformed August’s tally of $436 million by about 120%, as per Tracxn.

As the sequential rise provided a respite during a funding decline, September fared relatively better in terms of year-over-year comparison, down only about 8% from the total deal value in September 2022. It is, however, important to note that the funding winter started showing signs of setting in from September last year.

Late-stage deals surprisingly commanded the highest pieshare (57%), accounting for $546 million out of the total $960.5 million funding tally. This was due to one-off triple-digit million dollar deals at companies such as Perfios, Ola Electric, d-Matrix and Ather Energy.

“Apart from several macroeconomic challenges and geopolitical conditions grappling global VC funding landscape and making a dent in investor sentiment, the Indian startup ecosystem is grappling with rising investor caution regarding startup valuations,” Aurojyoti Bose, lead analyst at GlobalData, said.

In a report, London-based data analytics firm GlobalData had revealed that total venture capital deal value in Indian startups in the January to August period had sunk by 71.5% to $4.9 billion, year-on-year.

Here are the startups that got funded this week:

Perfios: The business-to-business software-as-a-service fintech startup raised $229 million from private equity investor Kedaara Capital.

d-Matrix: The artificial intelligence chip startup raised $110 million from investors, including Microsoft Corp.

Ola Electric: The electric two-wheeler maker closed a $140 million funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, at a $5.4 billion valuation.

Ather Energy: The electric two-wheeler maker pulled in $108.8 million from its shareholders Hero MotoCorp and Singapore's GIC through a rights issue.

Leads Connect: The agritech firm raised $62.5 million from BL Agro Industries, an FMCG company.