It seems like Indian startups had a good start to April, with a collective funding amount of $564 million raised across 18 deals in the first week of the month. This is a significant increase from the previous week, which saw Indian startups raising $102 million across 14 deals. The Fintech sector led the way in both the number of deals and total funding amount, raising $458 million across five deals. Other notable funding rounds included DMI Finance’s $400 million funding round led by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Curefoods’ $37 million funding round from Three State Ventures, and AVIOM Housing Finance Corporation’s $30 million Series D funding round led by Nuveen.
In terms of acquisitions, iNurture acquired Jag Bros Consultants’ brand ‘Youth4Work’ and formed a new venture called Y4W Learning, while CarDekho’s insurance arm InsuranceDekho acqui-hired Verak after raising $150 million. Additionally, there were several new startup fund launches, including V3 Ventures, BlackSoil, Iron Pillar, Speciale Invest, and Early Spring. It seems that two venture capital firms have recently launched funds for investing in different sectors. Speciale Invest launched a growth fund of INR 200 Cr to invest in spacetech, green hydrogen, robotics, green mobility, and other sectors. On the other hand, Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) will anchor an early stage fund called Early Spring, set up by Spring Marketing Capital, with an investment of INR 100 Cr. The fund will have a total corpus of INR 300 Cr and will participate in Seed and Pre-Series A funding rounds.