Except Indian startups, funding in young tech companies globally declined in 2019

The decline in funding in Asian startups was 56 per cent in 2019.

Even as the total funding in startups globally went down by 22 per cent to $293 billion from $375 billion in 2018 along with a 27 per cent drop in deals, Indian startups have stood out. Funding in Indian tech start-ups grew 18 per cent to $14 billion in 2019. Deal volume in Indian startups too, however, went down by 15 per cent in 2019 from the previous year. Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru attracted majority funding — $7.4 billion and $4.4 billion respectively in 2019, according to a report by research and consulting firm HexGn, PTI reported. The decline in funding in Asian startups was 56 per cent to $83 billion in 2019 from $158 billion in 2018.

India performed better not just in deal value but also with respect to the number of deals with companies like OYO, Paytm, Ola Electric, Udaan, Bounce, and Delhivery raising large rounds, according to the report. In terms of the top sectors where investors bet were fintech where startups saw more than $4.1 billion in funding apart from $2.4 billion invested in startups in transportation and logistics and $2.2 billion investment in the e-commerce sector.

Also read: OYO, Paytm, Sequoia, Accel top deal makers of 2019; startup funding jumps this much from last year

With respect to Private equity (PE) investments, according to data from Venture Intelligence, the amount invested was $37-billion mark in 2019 — highest since 2015 — on the back of large ticket infrastructure sector deals. The top five investments in 2019 included $3.6 billion in Reliance Tower Infra followed by $1.8 billion in Reliance Pipeline Infra, $1.1 billion in GMR Airports, $1.07 billion in GVK Airports, and $1 billion in Paytm. 2019 amount was marginal — 2.2 per cent up from 2018 investment of $36.1 billion. 2019 saw 74 deals worth $100 million or more (accounting for 74% of the total investment value in 2019) out of which 40 deals each were larger than $200 million while five investments were over $1 billion. The PE deal volume too declined by 8 per cent to 861 investments in 2019 from 937 in 2018. India saw the birth of nine unicorns in 2019 including Dream11, BigBasket, Delhivery, Druva Software, Ola Electric, Rivigo, Citius Tech, Icertis, and Lenskart.