Indian startups raised more VC funding in H1 2021 than whole of 2020

Indian startups have raised more venture capital (VC) funding in the first half of 2021 than they raised in the whole year of 2020.

According to data from Venture Intelligence, $12.1 billion of VC investments flowed into Indian startups so far in 2021, compared to $11.1 billion in all of 2020.

What’s more interesting is that the total VC funding in the first half of 2021 came in roughly half the number of deals as compared to the deal volume in 2020 - 382 deals in the first half of 2021 against a total of 764 last year. In fact, so far, 2021 has also been a year of unicorns, with 16 unicorns minted, compared to only nine unicorns added in 2020 and in 2019.

When it comes to sector-wise funding, the e-commerce sector bagged the maximum capital in 2021 so far with $4.1 billion, followed by fintech with $2.3 billion dollars and logistics with close to $2 billion.

Continuing its winning streak of 2020, Sequoia Capital has emerged as the most active VC investor, backing 30 companies already in the first six months of 2021, followed by Tiger Global that has been on an investment spree. It has backed 25 companies, and Accel India, which has backed 19 companies.