Indian startups raised a combined total of nearly $137 million in 25 deals in the latest week, down by 87% compared to the $1.1 billion raised by 20 startups last week. The week saw five growth-stage and 19 early-stage rounds, one undisclosed raise, four acquisitions, three leadership appointments, two new fund launches, and one platform shutdown.
Key Highlights
- Indian startups raised $137M this week, an 87% drop from last week's $1.1B total.
- Bengaluru led city-wise with 12 deals; seed rounds dominated with nine deals overall.
- Four acquisitions closed this week, including Noon-FinalRun and Mynd Fintech's buyout of C2FO India.
Growth-Stage Deals Lead With $68.1 Million
The total amount of funding for growth stages was $68.1 million in five deals. The Bhathwari Group made its mark as the topper with Rs 275 crore at the helm, followed by Lab grown diamond jewellery brand Limelight Diamonds. Incuspaze raised Rs 150 crore ($15.6M) from Bharat Value Fund, while agentic AI platform Kapture CX secured $10 million in a pre-Series B round led by Bajaj Finserv Ventures. Elder care startup Age Care Labs raised Rs 85 crore ($9M), and produce supply chain firm Ninjacart closed a $6 million round after a 4.5-year gap.
Early-Stage Deals Bring in $68.92 Million
A total of $68.92 million was raised in 19 deals by early-stage startups. The Indus Valley brand of cookware led the pack with $17 million raised from Gaja Capital and DSG Consumer Partners. BatX Energies (battery recycling) raised Rs 105 crore ($11M) via IvyCap Ventures, Dovetail Capital secured Rs 100 crore led by Elev8 Venture Partners, and enterprise tech firm DSW raised $5 million pre-Series A. Other funded startups included Supply6, BCT Ventures, MyKare.ai, Spense, PlayBlue, and Rawbare.
Bengaluru Dominates City-Wise Activity
Bengaluru led with 12 deals, followed by Mumbai with 7 deals and Delhi-NCR with 4 deals. Chennai and Hyderabad recorded one deal each. By segment, AI and e-commerce startups tied for the lead with six deals each, followed by fintech with 3, while healthtech, proptech, battery tech, agetech, and agritech also seeing activity.
Seed Rounds Dominate Series-Wise Split
Seed-stage rounds were the clear frontrunner this week, accounting for nine of the 25 deals - over a third of total activity - as early believers continued to back founders at the idea and early-traction stage. Series A rounds followed with six deals, reflecting steady appetite for startups that have already found initial product-market fit, while pre-seed rounds closed out the top three with four deals, pointing to healthy deal flow at the earliest stage of the funding pipeline.
Beyond these three categories, activity thinned out considerably: Series B, pre-Series A, pre-Series B, and Series D rounds each saw only limited, one-off activity during the week. The distribution pattern is skewed towards seed and pre-seed, indicating that investors continue to be more willing to write small, early cheques in today's market while growth capital and later-stage investors are still relatively selective. It is also a sign of a larger trend over the past five weeks in H1 2026: Early-stage deal volume has consistently exceeded growth-stage deal volume, even in weeks when the growth-stage dollar volume has risen.
Also Read: India Startup Funding Crosses $1.1 Billion in the Latest Week
Weekly Trend: Funding Down 87%
The amount of startup funding declined by 87% on a week-on-week basis to $137 million, from a total of about $1.1 billion raised by 20 startups the prior week. The extent of the drop is significant: Last week's figure has been spiked by a few high-dollar rounds, and this week's drop has been driven by a return to more typical rounds for that week, not a change in sentiment.
Zooming out, the eight-week rolling average stands at approximately $325 million, with an average of 20 deals per week over that period. Measured against this trailing average, this week's $137 million is roughly 58% below trend, while the 25 deals closed is actually slightly above the eight-week average deal count. Read together, the data points to a week where deal volume held up but ticket sizes shrank - more transactions, but smaller cheques overall - a pattern often seen when growth-stage and late-stage investors pause between large rounds while early-stage funding continues at a steady clip.
Other Key Developments
CheQ elevated Bipin Toro and Vished Banger to co-founder roles. Flipkart named Vinay Vaidya as SVP of Technology for Supply Chain, and Info Edge appointed Himanshu Agarwal as CFO. Four acquisitions were recorded: Ananta Capital took a majority stake in Phitku (~Rs 100 crore); Crib App acquired CirclePe; Mynd Fintech acquired C2FO India; and Noon acquired AI engineering startup FinalRun. Sparrow Capital closed its third fund at Rs 475 crore, targeting 25–30 startups with $1–2 million cheques. 100x100 launched a $100 million second fund to back climate startups across India and Southeast Asia. Dream Sports shut down its wealth management platform Dream Money less than a year after launch. Razorpay partnered with NPCI Bharat BillPay on netbanking; HiWiPay received IFSCA in-principle approval for a GIFT City PSP; UPI processed 22.72 billion transactions worth Rs 28.92 lakh crore in June; and Indian startups raised $7.4 billion in H1 2026, as per the report.
