Blume Ventures sets a breakneck speed in two years of existence; time will tell if the strategy works.
Indian startups raised a total of $1.65 billion (about Rs 14,418 crore) in funding at a median valuation of $83.2 million in February 2025, according to data from Traxcn. This brings the total funding in FY25 (April-February) to $25.4 billion, spread across 2,200 rounds, the data showed.
The government on Saturday announced a host of measures such as setting up of a new Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) with Rs 10,000 crore corpus; and extension of period of incorporation by five years with a view to promote growth of budding entrepreneurs.
The past few years have seen the first cycle of mergers and acquisitions, exits, and track-records being created.
Koo has so far raised $4.1 mn in Series A funding from existing investors Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and 3one4 Capital.
The app uses a traveller's mobile GPS to predict a train's delay.
Finally, some good news for the Indian startup ecosystem. After four consecutive half-year periods of declining funding since 2022, the first half (H1) of 2024 has shown an upward trend compared to the second half (H2) of 2023. According to the India Tech Semi-Annual Funding Report H1 2024 by Tracxn, Indian technology (tech) startups raised $4.1 billion in H1 2024, marking a 4 per cent increase from $3.96 billion in H2 2023.
The Chinese investor in the parent firm of Koo, India's answer to Twitter, is on its way out after other investors have pledged to buy out its 9 per cent stake, Koo's co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna said.
At least 14 of the top 20 venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funds in India reduced new deals with start-ups by a fifth in 2022. The number fell from 572 in 2021 to 456 this year, according to data from Venture Intelligence. Sequoia Capital, a leader in investments, retained its top slot but its number of deals fell from 110 in 2021 to 70 this year.
Venture Intelligence data shows that during January to July 2020, investors infused $998 million in 31 deals. The total number of deals reported in 2019 was 42 worth $404 million.
Bootstrapping has put Nithin Kamath of Zerodha in a position where he can trifle with talk about valuation, points out Suveen Sinha.
Koo, which works on similar lines as Twitter, was born with a focus on regional language, unlike Twitter and Facebook, which are very popular but primarily cater to an English-speaking audience, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Recently, Slice, a payment app, acquired a 5 per cent stake in North East Small Finance (NESF) for $3.42 million - the first such deal by a fintech in a small finance bank. Slice (valued at $1.5 billion, and backed by Tiger Global, Blume Ventures and Axis Bank) will technically get a toehold in a scheduled commercial bank if NESF were to get a licence to morph into one down the line Such a transition is well within the banking regulator's declared framework. The transaction has to be seen in a larger context.
People move from investment banking to growth equity or from venture capital to growth equity or entrepreneurship, depending on what's attractive at different points of life.
TaxiForSure's Aprameya Radhakrishna's new venture, Vokal, is a peer-to-peer content generation platform that is a cross between Reddit and Quora.
With more and more youngsters preferring to shop online, the credit appetite has surged.
The Indian startup, which was already working as a partner with Twitter, offers services like missed calls for user verification and alerts to its customers.
Even at early stage, start-ups are raising more money faster owing to the rise of a lot of specialised early-stage VCs and emergence of seed-stage programmes.
Zopper, a price comparison site, with 2,000 online and 200,000 offline merchants on board, aims to increase user activity 100 times in 3 years.
Ranju Sarkar finds out more about Nowfloats, the start-up that is used by 240,000 businesses that reach 13 million consumers.
Investments are at risk if operators are unable to resolve concerns of authorities and customers after the rape accusation.
In the past few days, many companies, including fashion e-tailer Nykaa, food delivery platform Zomato, logistics and delivery firm Delhivery, insurance discovery platform PolicyBazaar, eyewear retail chain Lenskart, and edtech and online tutoring firm Byju's, have openly spoken about their IPO plans.
These start-ups include high-growth companies such as Ola, Paytm, Lenskart, UrbanClap and Urban Ladder. Nearly half of these have gone on to raise follow-on funding, a key measure of success for start-ups. A few have become unicorns, the term for start-ups valued at $1 billion or more.
After the Google investment, the company's monthly transactions have spiralled up from 65,000 to nearly one million in just a year. According to reports, the start-up is in fresh talks to raise about $6 million from investors, including Google, says Samreen Ahmad.
Mobile payments alone gathered close to $1.51 billion in the year 2017 through 13 rounds of funding, according to data compiled by Tracxn
The ban on taxi aggregators can put at risk investments of at least Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), made by private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investors.
In India, where it is tougher to do business, a start-up gets established by the Series-B stage, and it gets expensive for investors.
Over the last 12 months, thanks to bold bets by venture capital firms like Sequoia, SoftBank Vision Fund, and foreign strategic investors like Naspers, pipeline of start-ups with potential to achieve $1 bn in valuation is at an all-time high.
Travel is all about venturing into unchartered territory, and experiencing new cultures and people. Starting up is very similar.
In the Silicon Valley of India, one can use the cryptocurrency to pay for food, buy bus tickets, order stuff online, and even get a haircut.
According to data from Venture Intelligence, PEs invested in two mobile payment solutions firms each in 2009, 2010 and 2011. This grew to four deals in 2012 and five deals in 2013.
Start-ups have begun looking at ways to conserve cash.
Droom has seen aircraft such as the Falcon, Hawk and Cessna being rented.
Start-up Belong.co uses an unconventional way of hiring that trusts more on data available on social media or tweets than the resume.
RailYatri offers a host of travel-related services to a 4.5 million user base. Shine Jacob finds out what's next for the app.
HealthifyMe is an app that connects users to fitness trainers virtually, motivate them on goals.
Morgan Stanley writing down its investment in the e-commerce leader by 27 per cent does not augur well for the sector.
Users send a message on the app and a virtual assistant responds.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances