![Funding and acquisitions in Indian startups this week [May 25 - May 30]](https://assets-news-bcdn.dailyhunt.in/cmd/resize/800x450_75/fetchdata20/images/b5/9c/fe/b59cfe1063187c697eb922ca4023f1f417c0962bd63abe03dedffd567fa38edd.webp)
This week, 15 Indian startups raised around $75.35 million, comprising 3 growth-stage deals, 9 early-stage deals, while 2 startups kept their funding undisclosed.
In contrast, 14 startups had collectively secured about $128.36 million in the previous week.
[Growth-stage deals]
Growth-stage startups raised a total of $32.09 million across three deals this week, led by synthetic biology startup StrainX Bioworks, which secured $13 million in a round co-led by Prime Venture Partners and Leo Capital. D2C food brand Anveshan raised Rs 121 crore ($12.7 million) in a Series B round led by Vertex Ventures, with participation from International Finance Corporation, Titan Capital, and others. Meanwhile, grab-and-go coffee chain abcoffee raised Rs 61 crore ($6.39 million) in a pre-Series B round led by Kliff Ventures.
[Early-stage deals]
Early-stage startups raised $43.26 million across 10 deals this week, led by B2B quick commerce platform Fairdeal.Market, which raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Bertelsmann India Investments. AI training data provider Human Archive followed with an $8.2 million round backed by Wing Venture Capital, NVP Capital, Y Combinator, and others.
Meanwhile, Tiea Connectors raised Rs 77 crore ($8 million) in a Series A round led by IvyCap Ventures. Home salon services platform Yes Madam also secured its maiden funding of Rs 50 crore ($5.2 million) from Info Edge in a Series A round.
D2C footwear brand Yoho, Semiconductor startup C2i Semiconductors, Usage-based billing startup Flexprice, and 3 other early stage startups also secured funding this week.
[City and segment-wise deals]
Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru topped the city-wise deal count with five deals each, followed by Mumbai with two deals. Bhopal, Nagpur and Rishikesh recorded one deal each.
Segment-wise, e-commerce startups led the week with three deals. Home services, healthtech, AI, Manufacturing, F&B, Fintech, deeptech and others also recorded funding activity during the period.
[Series-wise deals]
Series A rounds led the week with five deals, followed by three seed rounds. Series B, pre-seed, pre-Series B and angel rounds also witnessed activity during the week.
[Week-on-week funding trend]
On a weekly basis, startup funding declined more than 41% to $75.35 million, compared to around $128.36 million raised during the previous week.
The average funding over the last eight weeks stands at around $201.6 million, with an average of 20 deals per week.
[Key hirings/departures]
Key leadership movements this week: EMotorad appointed former CARS24 executive Himanshu Ratnoo as co-founder, while upGrad named Mukesh Mundra as its new CFO, replacing Venkatesh Tarakkad. Lightspeed Venture Partners strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Rohit Kaul as marketing head. Meanwhile, Anthropic appointed Sangeeta Bavi as Head of Digital Natives, Startups and Growth for India to drive adoption of Claude among startups and mid-market firms. Separately, Pocket FM saw another senior-level exit, with Mayank Sancheti stepping down as Senior Vice President.
Departure:
Audio entertainment platform Pocket FM is witnessing key leadership exits, with CFO Anurag Sharma and Senior Vice President Mayank Sancheti stepping down from their roles. Meanwhile, Mansi Chugh has exited Lightspeed Venture Partners after nearly four years as VP of Marketing and Communications, while Sanjay Byalal Jagannath has departed EV rapid-charging startup Exponent Energy, which he co-founded in 2020.
[Mergers & Acquisitions]
Corporate travel and expense management platform Ziptrrip has acquired online travel marketplace HelloTravel Online to strengthen its presence across business leisure, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions), and experiential travel segments.
[Fund Launches]
Alternative investment funds continued to see momentum this week. JM Financial Asset Management launched its second credit AIF, JM Financial Select Credit Fund II, with a target corpus of Rs 1,000 crore and an equal greenshoe option. Meanwhile, Ashish Kumar, co-founder of Fundamentum Partnership, launched frontier-tech investment platform F2A and secured SEBI approval for its Rs 2,000 crore AI and DeepTech-focused fund.
Growth-stage VC firm Physis Capital announced the final close of its maiden Rs 400 crore fund to back startups from Pre-Series A to Series B stages. Separately, Himalaya Wealth Managers LLP launched Himalaya SME Scheme-I, a Category I AIF with a target corpus of Rs 250 crore and an equal greenshoe option to invest in high-growth SMEs across India.
[New launches and partnerships]
▪️ Neocambrian AI launches India-focused robotics data factory for Physical AI models
▪️CRED launches AI-powered engineering platform
[Q4 FY26 result this week]
[News flash this week]
▪️ Gaming firms to face over Rs 1 lakh Cr tax blow as Supreme Court backs 28% GST
▪️ PhonePe crosses 10 bn UPI transactions for second straight month in April
▪️ A91 Partners-backed spice maker Pushp files DRHP for OFS-only IPO
▪️ After NBFC approval, MobiKwik gets RBI nod for offline payment aggregator business
▪️Digit Life Insurance Settles Rs 4.5 Crore Death Claim in Maharashtra Within Five Days
[Summary]
PhonePe retained its dominance in the UPI ecosystem in April, processing over 10.33 billion transactions, according to data from National Payments Corporation of India. While overall UPI transactions dipped marginally to 22.34 billion in April from a record 22.64 billion in March, the payments network continued to see strong traction across merchant and peer-to-peer payments. Backed by Walmart, PhonePe captured 46.2% of total UPI transaction volume and 49.3% of transaction value, processing payments worth Rs 14.31 lakh crore during the month.
The Supreme Court upheld the government's decision to levy 28% GST retrospectively on online gaming companies, validating tax demands exceeding Rs 1 lakh crore. The court ruled that once money is staked in online games, the distinction between games of skill and chance becomes irrelevant for GST purposes, backing the government's stance that the entire contest amount deposited by users, and not just platform fees or gross gaming revenue (GGR), is taxable. Companies including Dream11, Games24x7, Head Digital Works, and Gameskraft had challenged the tax interpretation.
Pushp, backed by A91 Partners, has filed its DRHP with Securities and Exchange Board of India for an IPO comprising entirely an offer for sale (OFS) of 7.44 million shares, with no fresh issue component. Under the OFS, A91 Partners and Sixth Sense Ventures will offload 4.22 million and 1.54 million shares, respectively, while promoters Mahendra Kumar Surana and Surendra Kumar Surana will each sell 8.4 lakh shares.
One Mobikwik Systems, the parent of MobiKwik, has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India for a Payment Aggregator-Physical (PA-P) licence, enabling the fintech firm to scale its offline merchant payments business across India. The company said the approval will strengthen its payment acceptance infrastructure for offline commerce and support its target of achieving 10X growth in its merchant business by FY28.
Go Digit Life Insurance settled its largest Group Term Life death claim of FY25-26, a Rs 4.5 crore payout to a family in Maharashtra, within five days of receiving the final documents, according to its latest Transparency Report 4.0. The settlement highlights the growing importance of faster claims processing as a key differentiator in India's life insurance sector, where policyholders increasingly expect the speed and convenience offered by digital banking and fintech platforms