Startup funding report shows Indian startups raising $113.35 million in the latest week across 28 deals, comprising 3 growth-stage rounds, 22 early-stage deals, and 3 undisclosed rounds. The week also saw 8 key appointments, 3 fund launches, and 2 mergers and acquisitions, even as funding fell sharply from the previous week.

Key Highlights

• Indian startups raised $113.35 million across 28 deals, led by DailyObjects' Rs 332 crore Series C round.
• Bengaluru led with 10 deals, while e-commerce topped sector-wise activity with eight deals.

Weekly Funding Trend

On a week-on-week basis, startup funding dropped over 72% to $113.35 million from $411.46 million raised the previous week. The average weekly startup funding over the past eight weeks stands at around $231.6 million across 22 deals, so this week's total came in well below the recent trend even though the deal count was higher.

Growth-Stage Deals Total $55.3 Million

In total, growth-stage startups raised $55.3 million in three deals. DailyObjects led the Series C round, which was co-led by Xponentia Capital Partners, Anicut Capital and Axiom Asia Private Capital with an investment of Rs 332 crore (nearly $35 million).

Beyond Appliances, a smart kitchen appliance startup, led by Fireside Ventures, raised Rs 110 crore ($11.4 million) in a Series B round. Digital lender NeoGrowth focused on MSMEs received Rs 85 crore in equity and debt funding from FMO and LeapFrog Investments.

Early-Stage Startups Raise $58.05 Million

Early-stage startups collectively raised $58.05 million across 22 deals. Photonic quantum technology startup Quanfluence led with $10 million from Chiratae Ventures and Rainmatter. Edtech startup byteXL followed with $9 million from Elevar Equity.

Medtech startup Sunfox Technologies raised $7 million in a Series A round co-led by Ashish Kacholia, Lashit Sanghvi, Alchemy Capital, and 3one4 Capital. Quantum computing startup QpiAI secured Rs 50 crore in debt funding from InnoVen Capital.

Other funded startups included omnichannel menswear brand Kisah, wealth management startup Zomint, AI startup Desible.ai, healthtech startup SuperMush, and cold-pressed oil brand Gramiyaa. Travel tech platform TravClan, financial information platform MoneyTruVa, and biofortified staples brand Better Nutrition also raised funding, but the amounts were not disclosed.

City and Sector-Wise Funding Trends

Bengaluru again led the funding charts with 10 deals, followed by Delhi-NCR (6) and Mumbai (3). Hyderabad, Dehradun, and Chandigarh also recorded deals.

E-commerce startups led the sectors with eight deals, followed by AI (5) and healthtech (4). Fintech, foodtech, SaaS, edtech, and deeptech also saw funding activity. By stage, seed rounds led with 13 deals, followed by pre-seed and Series A with five deals each, while Series C, Series B, debt, and pre-Series A recorded one deal each.

Key Hires

Eight key appointments were announced this week:

• Sorry Sugar named Palash Arneja as Founder and CEO.
• Google Cloud appointed Amit Kumar as interim India head.
• Snabbit appointed Ramesh Srinivasan as Head of Growth and Revenue.
• ALTEN India named Prabhakar Atla as CEO.
• Eggoz onboarded actor Boman Irani as its brand ambassador.
• Genefied promoted Krishna Khandelwal to Chief Sales Officer.
• Sarvam AI appointed former Google Cloud India MD Sashikumar Sreedharan as President and Chief Business Officer.
• OTPless named Geetanshu Singla as CTO.

Also Read: Startup Funding in August Nears $1 Bn as 88 Startups Raises $955 Mn

Fund Launches

To invest in deeptech, AI, clean energy, space, and healthcare startups, entrepreneur Navya Naveli Nanda founded a venture arm, Naveli Ventures, of her family's office, Nanda Family Office. D2C brands NABVENTURES brought in Rs 450 crore in its second fund's first close while Recur Club announced a Rs 500 crore fund to support 150-170 growth capital seekers in FY27.

Mergers and Acquisitions

FMCG major Marico has made another acquisition of Satiya Nutraceuticals' parent company Plix for Rs 1012.03 crore. Hoola Health, a paediatric health care firm, bought the early-childhood education platform UpTodd.

Major News and Developments

Startup Policy Forum (SPF) unveiled a deeptech policy platform called DeepVerse, which is backed by 30 partners that include Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners and Lightspeed. There are 10 sectors targeted in the initiative, such as semiconductors, spacetech, defence technology, biotech, cleantech and robotics.

Flipkart is rolling out 13th The Big Billion Days (TBBD) starting October 9 with early access for select Flipkart members from October 8. The sale will be powered by record number of sellers, AI-powered shopping experiences and a network of more than 8,200 fulfilment and delivery centres all across India, including Ekart and Flipkart Minutes.

The first Bangalore Climate Data Week is being organized by the Climate Collective Foundation from 12th – 16th October with more than 30 events in Bengaluru. With the backing of the Google and Karnataka's innovation agencies, it is likely to attract more than 2,000 participants.

According to Bernstein, Quick commerce major Blinkit had the highest rate of products being in-stock at 94.4%, followed by Flipkart Minutes (88.7%), Swiggy Instamart (83.8%) and Zepto (82.5%).

Groww has seen its number of active clients grow by more than 1 lakh in September while Sahi was the fastest-growing broker in the top 20 stock broking platforms by 11% month-on-month. As per the latest data from NSE, the industry has added 0.35% to 4.61 crore active customers up from 4.59 crore in August, adding 99,640 new customers.

BofA lowered its price target for the stock by 19% to Rs 1,145 on a neutral rating as it expects the insurance commissions proposed by IRDAI to result in a drop of 39-41% in earnings per share for FY28 and FY29. It still has an outstanding Buy on Paytm with a price target of Rs 1,775 and is looking forward to solid Q2 FY27 growth for both.

New products and Collaborations

• PhonePe has entered into an MoU with the Digital Publisher Content Grievances Council (DPCGC), a self-regulatory organisation under IAMAI, making the process of certification for OTT platforms and online content publishers easier and faster using its payment gateway.
• Flipping the warehouse by adding 14 million cubic-feet of capacity and expanding the delivery network to new PINs by more than 750 just before the festive season, Flipkart has raised its storage capacity by 50% and peak processing volumes by over 30%.
• Pluckk's product launched in the UK in 17 stores within a month and has 15% market share in these stores in the protein bar category. It plans to hit 100 stores in three months' time and 500 stores a year later.
• Pine Labs unveiled a single merchant platform in Singapore that brings together payment acceptance, acquiring, installment payment and customer engagement solutions.