ETtech Deals Digest: Zepto cheers with $200 million deal; pulls in over 81% of week’s funding

Express e-grocer Zepto, with its $200 million funding deal on Friday, lent some much-needed cheer to the startup ecosystem, making up for a little over 81% of the total funding that startups raised over the week of August 19 to 25.

The rest of the startups -- 17 of them -- raised only $46 million. They were fairly distributed among sectors of ecommerce, software-as-a-service and healthtech, among others. However, fintech led the pack with five deals.

Startups raised about $246 million across 18 funding deals during the week. In value terms, it was 51% down from the same period a year ago. By volume, it was 68% lower.

Early-stage deals continued to keep up the momentum, recording the highest number of deals. Twelve of the funding deals were seed-stage, four in Series A stage, one in Series B and one in Series E.

Straying from the usual startup representation from cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, firms headquartered across cities such as Coimbatore, Jaipur and Mysuru also raised funding.

The top 5 deals this week:

Zepto raised $200 million: The Mumbai-based quick commerce startup raised fresh capital at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making it the first unicorn to be minted in India in almost a year.

Zaggle raised about $11 million: The fintech startup raised Rs 25 crore from ValueQuest Scale Fund in a pre-IPO (initial public offering) round. It raised Rs 73 crore from a clutch of investors through a private placement in a separate tranche.

GradRight raised about $6 million: The education-focused fintech startup raised Rs 50 crore in a Series A funding round from IvyCap Ventures.

Maxbyte raised $5 million: e& capital led the investment in the integrated digital and robotics solutions startup space to strengthen its market expansion and product development.

Superbottoms raised $5 million: The baby care brand raised $5 million in a funding round led by Lok Capital and Sharrp Ventures.