ETtech Deals Digest: Weekly funding plunges 84% to $22.5 million; most deals sub-$4 million

Funding in the August 12-18 week has crashed to $22.5 million -- a massive 83.5% decline from $136 million in the same period a year ago. In terms of deal volume, there were seven deals during the week, compared to 57 a year ago.

Growth- and late-stage deal activity continued to be muted. Among the seven deals reported this week, there were four seed-stage deals, two series A deals and a round dubbed pre-series A.

The largest funding round in the week was worth $15.1 million, the remainder being under $4 million.

Sequentially, funding in volume terms fell 70% from last week’s 23 deals, while in terms of value, it plunged nearly 92% to $268 million.

Earlier in the month, a survey of investors from consulting firm Redseer had indicated that the ongoing slowdown in startup investments may persist for another six to 12 months.

Redseer had added that about 90% of 2023’s overall expected funding deals will be seed or early-stage investments, ET reported Wednesday.

“I think it will likely take nine to 12 months for the market environment to stabilise. I believe that growth investing will gain momentum at that point due to the substantial available capital,” Hemant Taneja, managing director and CEO, General Catalyst, had said in the report.

Of the 7 deals this week, three companies operate each in the fintech sector, two in the business-to-business data analytics space and one in the travel segment.

Here are some of the startups that got funded this week:

DynamoFL raised $15.1 million: The privacy-solutions provider for generative artificial intelligence (AI) space raised $15.1 million as a part of a fresh funding round, co-led by existing investor Nexus Venture Partners and Canapi Ventures.

Entri raised about $3.5 million: The Kochi-based startup raised $3.47 million for its business of a mobile-based platform providing government exam preparation and multi-disciplinary learning solutions.

Contiinex raised $2 million: The speech AI startup raised the funding from YourNest and Refex Capital.