Indian Startup Funding — Startups Raised $386 Mn This Week

SUMMARY

Between March 3 and March 8, Indian startups cumulatively raised $385.5 Mn across 29 deals, marking an over 4X of the $88.3 Mn raised last week by 16 startups

The past week saw two startups raise over $100 Mn in funding - Darwinbox's $140 Mn fundraise and Leap Finance's $100 Mn debt raise

AC Ventures emerged as the most active investor during the week, partaking in Phot.AI's seed funding round and spacetech TakeMe2Space's maiden funding round

Emerging from a gloomy month in terms of private funding, investor interest in the Indian startup ecosystem seems to have gained new wings in the third month of 2025.

On the back of two mega funding rounds and an over 80% increase in the number of funding deals that materialised, the first week of March saw a substantial increase in Indian startup weekly funding trends.

Between March 3 and 8, Indian startups cumulatively raised $385.5 Mn across 29 deals. This is over 4X of the $88.3 Mn raised by 16 startups in the preceding week.

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News

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [Mar 3 – Mar 8]

Date	Name	Sector	Subsector	Business Model	Funding Round Size	Funding Round Type	Investors	Lead Investor
5 Mar 2025	Darwinbox	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$140 Mn	–	Partners Group, KKR, Gravity Holdings	Partners Group, KKR
5 Mar 2025	Leap Finance	Fintech	Lendingtech	B2C	$100 Mn	Debt	HSBC	HSBC
4 Mar 2025	InsuranceDekho	Fintech	Insurtech	B2B-B2C	$70 Mn	–	Beams Fintech Fund, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, BNP Paribas Cardif	Beams Fintech Fund, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, BNP Paribas Cardif
6 Mar 2025	Swish	Consumer Services	Hyperlocal Delivery	B2C	$14 Mn	Series A	Accel, Hara Global, Gaurav Munjal	–
6 Mar 2025	MaxIQ	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$7.8 Mn	Seed	Dell Technologies Capital, Intel Capital	Dell Technologies Capital
5 Mar 2025	Beacon.li	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$7 Mn	Series A	Sorin Investments, Sanjay Nayar, Athera Venture Partners, JAFCO Asia, Unicorn India Ventures, Aneesh Reddy, Aravind Sanka, Kapil Bharti	Sorin Investments
7 Mar 2025	Furlenco	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$7 Mn	Debt	Northern Arc, CredAvenue	–
5 Mar 2025	Zetwerk	Enterprise Tech	Enterprise Services	B2B	$5 Mn	–	Arc Investments, Oriental Biotech Limited	Arc Investments, Oriental Biotech Limited
7 Mar 2025	indē wild	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$5 Mn	–	Unilever Ventures, SoGal Ventures, True	Unilever Ventures
4 Mar 2025	Nuuk	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$4.6 Mn	Series A	Vertex Ventures	Vertex Ventures
6 Mar 2025	Innoviti	Fintech	Payments	B2B	$4 Mn	–	Ashutosh Joshi, Bessemer Venture Partners	–
4 Mar 2025	Rezolv	Fintech	Fintech SaaS	B2B	$3.5 Mn	Seed	3one4 Capital	3one4 Capital
4 Mar 2025	FluxGen	Cleantech	Water Tech	B2B	$3.4 Mn	pre-Series A	IAN Alpha Fund, Rainmatter, Gameskraft Technologies, Intersection Ventures, Force Ventures, Axilor Ventures, Arali Ventures	IAN Alpha Fund
4 Mar 2025	Deciml	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$3 Mn	Seed	Jainam Broking Limited	Jainam Broking Limited
6 Mar 2025	Phot.AI	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$2.7 Mn	Seed	Info Edge Ventures, Together Fund, AC Ventures, Saahil Goel, Akshay Ghulati, Aakash Anand, Arjun Vaidya, Prabhkiran Singh, Puneet Gupta, Anmol Jain, Sandeep Aggarwal, Vishesh Khurana, Raj Snehil Junej, Pawan Gupta	Info Edge Ventures
7 Mar 2025	Bacca Bucci	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$2.5 Mn	–	JP Taparia	JP Taparia
3 Mar 2025	CredResolve	Fintech	Fintech SaaS	B2B	$1.1 Mn	Seed	UNLEASH Capital Partners, CDM Capital	UNLEASH Capital Partners
6 Mar 2025	Yenmo	Fintech	Lendingtech	B2C	$1.1 Mn	–	Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Zaka VC	Y Combinator
3 Mar 2025	Arva Health	Healthtech	Healthcare Services	B2C	$1 Mn*	pre-Seed
7 Mar 2025	Vobble	Media & Entertainment	OTT	B2C	$1 Mn*	Seed	MIXI Investments, Lumikai, Namita Thapar, Sattva Investments	MIXI Investments
4 Mar 2025	TakeMe2Space	Deeptech	Spacetech	B2B	$633K	pre-Seed	Seafund, Ventures, Artha Venture Fund, AC Ventures	Seafund, Ventures
4 Mar 2025	NapTapGo	Travel Tech	Accommodation	B2C	$500K	pre-Seed	T9L Qube	–
4 Mar 2025	Beautywise	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	$345K	–	Aman Gupta, Kunal Bahl, Ritesh Agarwal	–
5 Mar 2025	DotMe	Consumer Services	–	B2C	$150K	–	Mirza L. Baig	Mirza L. Baig
6 Mar 2025	Zuppa Neo Navigation Technologies	Deeptech	Dronetech	B2B	$115K	–	Garuda Aerospace	Garuda Aerospace
4 Mar 2025	Fuzen.io	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	$100K	pre-Seed	ah! Ventures	ah! Ventures
5 Mar 2025	Naarica	Ecommerce	D2C	B2C	–	–	Saina Nehwal	Saina Nehwal
4 Mar 2025	UptimeAI	Enterprise Tech	Horizontal SaaS	B2B	–	–	ABB Motion	ABB Motion
4 Mar 2025	Bull Agritech	Agritech	Market Linkage	B2B-B2C	–	–	iCreate	iCreate
	Source: Inc42 Part of a larger round *Included this week as it was skipped last week Note: Only disclosed funding rounds have been included

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

The past week saw two startups raising over $100 Mn- Darwinbox’s $140 Mn fundraise and Leap Finance’s $100 Mn debt raise.
On the back of Leap’s fundraise, fintech emerged as the investor favourite segment over the past week, with six startups in the sector raising $179.7 Mn.
Meanwhile, enterprise tech saw the highest number of eight funding deals materialise over the past week. Startups in the sector cumulatively netted $165.6 Mn during the week.
Ten startups at the seed stage raised $19.1 Mn this week, over 3X the $5.7 Mn raised by startups at this last week.
AC Ventures emerged as the most active investor during the week, partaking in Phot.AI’s seed funding round and spacetech TakeMe2Space’s maiden funding round.

Fund Updates This Week

VC firm Prime Venture Partners announced its fifth fund with a corpus of $100 Mn to invest $2 Mn to $4 Mn in 16-18 early stage startups.
SoftBank’s former chief Rajeev Misra’s son Rohan Misra raised $150 Mn for his India-focussed fund Gravity Holdings during the week. The fund made its first investment in Darwinbox during the week.
A Junior VC (AJVC) closed its first INR 100 Cr fund targeting pre-seed investments in India this week. Further, the VC is aiming to exercise a greenshoe option to raise another INR 50 Cr for the fund.
Together Fund is eyeing the final close of its $150 Mn Fund II by June. The VC’s cofounder and managing director Manav Garg claims that it has made 31 investments across its two funds through the second fund.

Other Developments Of The Week

Infibeam Avenues’ board approved divestment of 49% stake in Pirimid Technologies Limited to its subsidiary Rediff.com India for a consideration of up to INR 27 Cr.
Ola Electric chief Bhavish Aggarwal pledged 5.88 Cr shares of the EV major to raise additional debt for his AI unicorn Krutrim from investors Avendus, lnCred, others.
Healthtech startup Truemeds is eyeing the raise of $44 Mn in a fresh funding round which is scheduled to be led by Accel.
Info Edge informed that its portfolio startup NoPaperForms’ board has approved the proposal to go for an initial public offering soon. The startup has reportedly roped in IIFL Capital and SBI Capital for its IPO.
Groww has issued bonus compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCPS) to existing investors Peak XV Partners, Ribbit Capital and Y Combinator.
Workforce management startup BetterPlace received approval from its shareholders to raise $3.6 Mn from Jungle Ventures and Capria Ventures this week.
D2C menswear brand XYXX is seeking approval from its shareholders to raise $3.4 Mn from Niveshaay Sambhav Fund.
Fintech soonicorn M2P Fintech is currently in talks to acquire enterprise AI startup Mad Street Den to bolster its AI and data playbook.
Fintech SaaS startup Mintoak acquired Digiledge to add bill payments and CBDC solutions to its digital payments platform.
B2B fintech startup Rupifi is eyeing the raise of $2 Mn from existing investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Ankur Capital and Quona Capital in a bridge funding round.