India's startup funding surged 39% to $303.7 million over 25 deals in the latest week, which included 5 growth-stage deals, 16 early-stage deals and 3 undisclosed rounds. During the week there were seven key hires, four mergers and acquisitions, two startup shutdowns and 250 layoffs.
Key Highlights
- Indian startups funding saw over $303.7 million raise, 39% increase from the $218.7 million funding raised by 24 startups the previous week.
- Bengaluru dominated the funding chart with 14 deals and deeptech was the top in terms of funding sector-wise with 5 deals.
Growth-Stage Deals Total $201.9 Million
Five deals for growth-stage startups raised a combined $201.9 million this week. Slice, a digital banking startup, raised $100 million with a valuation of $450 million led by Neo Wealth with Kado Global, Moore Strategic Ventures and Raise Financial participating.
Wearable tech firm Ultrahuman made it to the Qualcomm Ventures-led round which saw the participation of Labcorp, Alpha Wave, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners and Alteria that has raised $70 million. SUGAR Cosmetics, a direct-to-consumer brand for skincare products, raised Rs 144.5 crore ($15.2 million) from existing investor A91 Partners at a valuation of Rs 755 crore, which is a 75% decrease from its last raises at Rs 3,000 crore.
Belgium-based investment firm Verlinvest led the funding round for Homegrown sneaker brand Comet in the Series B round as it raised Rs 100 crore. Pune-based deeptech company Aeron Systems raised Rs 45 crore ($4.7 million) in a pre-Series B round.
Early-Stage Startups Raise $101.8 Million
Early-stage startups had been able to raise a total of $101.8 million in 16 deals this week. Yuma Energy led by Magna International is the BaaS provider that raised Rs 35 million and NextGen Finance led by Beams Fintech Fund has raised $35 million.
Cradlewise, a consumer health start-up, raised $12 million in Series A financing, led by 3one4 Capital and Prudent Investment Management. Space infrastructure startup Kepler Aerospace raised $8 million in seed funding led by Blue Ashva Capital.
Former Google AI lead Prashant Jalan launched Guickly with $4.2 million in seed funding led by Engineering Capital. Deeptech startup Zenergize Technologies also raised $4 million in pre-Series A funding led by Giraffe Studios.
Other startups that raised funding during the week included deeptech firms Minimac Systems and Alteon, along with indoor air-quality company YOGa Clean Air and six other startups. Voice-first AI tutoring platform YoLearn.ai, English learning app SpeakX, neurotechnology startup Neurotech and deeptech firm BQP also raised funding this week, with amounts undisclosed.
City and Sector-Wise Funding Trends
Bengaluru led the funding charts with 14 startup deals during the week, followed by Delhi-NCR with 5 deals. Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad also recorded funding activity.
Deeptech startups led the sectors with five deals, followed by healthtech and AI with four deals each. E-commerce secured 3 deals during the week, while fintech and edtech startups recorded two deals each, with EV, spacetech and manufacturing sectors also seeing activity. In terms of funding stages, Series A rounds led with 8 deals, followed by seed and pre-seed rounds with five and four deals respectively, while Series D, Series B, pre-Series A, Series C and pre-Series B rounds each saw one deal.
Weekly Funding Trend Shows Sharp Surge
Compared to the previous week when startups raised $218.7 million, the latest week's startup funding increased by more than 39% to $303.7 million. The latest week's numbers were much higher than the recent trend, with an average of about $218.25 million in 20 deals over the past eight weeks.
Key Hires and Departures
To boost processes and technology-driven execution, digital healthcare platform MediBuddy appoints Shalabh Shrivastava as its Head of Operations, Bengaluru. Pine Labs, the Fintech platform, has named Jayaram Karthik as its Chief Operations Officer from the previous role of SVP, Business Operations at Razorpay.
Wingify appointed Mehernaz Dalal as Chief Financial Officer, while Boldfit appointed former Lenskart Chief Business Officer Oliver Kaye as Chief Operating Officer. Enterprise SaaS company Genefied appointed Neha Lakhwara as Head of Investor Relations and Strategy, and technology-led credit inclusion platform BankSathi appointed Nitish Kumar Bugalia as Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Gurugram-based insurtech startups InsuranceDekho and RenewBuy merged to create a unified pan-India insurance distribution platform under the InsuranceDekho brand, with founder and CEO Ankit Agrawal leading the combined entity.
Bengaluru-based travel-fintech platform Niyo agreed to acquire Capital India Finance's forex and cross-border business, operated under the RemitX brand, bringing RemitX's branch network, distribution partners, employees and brand under Niyo.
Adobe acquired India-based marketing intelligence startup Rilo in a deal involving the licensing of its technology and acquisition of its team — Adobe's second acquisition from India. Meanwhile, cloud-based lending platform Lenra AI acquired Israel-based data science company Data Harbor, aimed at strengthening Lenra's Intelligence Stack and automation across the lending lifecycle.
Layoffs and Shutdown
Uber is set to eliminate approximately 200-250 workers in India, as part of an international restructuring that involves a reduction in both the People and Earners teams. The company is rationalizing its global workforce by removing about 3,300 jobs, representing 10% of its staff, the largest reduction since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Zomato parent Eternal is planning to axe nearly 250 employees in a restructuring of customer support functions.
e-grocery startup Satvacart came to an end after 12 years and the day of its closure was August 28th when it suspended its operations due to years of funding woes where smaller capital rounds were not enough to restore and grow the company.
Major News and Developments
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) had the highest ever number of transactions worth Rs 29.82 lakh crore through the platform in August 2026, as its UPI transaction volume grew by 3.6% month-on-month and 22% year-on-year, data from the NPCI showed.
Secondary market trading also rose significantly in August and Indian new-age companies such as Lenskart, Groww, Meesho, Eternal and Paytm witnessed 17 block and bulk trading deals worth Rs 26,337 crore ($2.77 billion), mostly due to the activity of early-stage investors and the promoters selling their stock.
Edtech startup Unacademy has been acquired by UpGrad for a little more than $200 million and has experienced a 94% drop in its valuation from its peak of around $3.4 billion in 2021. Gaurav Munjal, the co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, has confirmed the deal.
Also Read: Indian Startup Funding: 24 Firms Raise $218.69 Mn in the Latest Week
New Product Launches and Partnerships
CREW, the premium concierge platform from the Swiggy ecosystem, entered the travel space with a dedicated personal travel concierge offering, planning, booking and curating journeys end-to-end. Separately, Swiggy and Hero MotoCorp partnered to offer delivery partners exclusive pricing on Hero models, along with customised financing solutions and road safety training.
Scapia Pay launched biometric authentication for UPI payments, allowing users to authenticate transactions below Rs 10,000 via fingerprint or face scan instead of entering their UPI PIN. MapmyIndia Mappls, in partnership with ClarityX, launched Geo-FI, a geo-intelligence platform for lending, while Flipkart entered the microdrama space with short-form content on its app.
