[Weekly funding roundup Jan 31-Feb 4] Venture inflow remains weak in absence of large deals

The first week of February has not exactly started on a strong note for Indian startups as the funding amount has been in the $100 million-plus range, coming off the high from the last week of January.

The first week of February saw total funding of $155 million across 20 deals. In the last week of January, the capital inflow into startups was $1.5 billion.

During the week, the majority of the venture funding deals were in the early-stage category, accounting for 17 transactions with the remaining in the growth segment.

The lower funding amount for the first week of February is probably a minor blip as the month of January witnessed a total venture fund inflow of $2.8 billion.

Given the various conversations around the boom in the ecosystem, many Indian startups are now in the soonicorn category, with some of them likely to get into the unicorn status.

Though, at the same time, some of the leading figures from the VC world believe that startups need to focus more on business metrics and less on valuations. The expectation is that there would lesser capital available for investment this year as governments across the world look at restricting the supply of money into the economy. This may have a bearing on the funding momentum for startups.

Deals of the week

Edtech startup Scaler raised $55 million from Lightrock India, Sequoia Capital India, and Tiger Global.

Logistics startup Loadshare raised $40 million from Tiger Global, Filter Capital, 57 Stars, CDC Group, and Matrix Partners India.

Fintech startup Jar raised $32 million from Tiger Global, Rocketship.vc, Third Prime, Stonks, Force Ventures, Arkam Ventures, and WEH Ventures.

Wealth advisory firm Waterfield Advisors raised $6 million from family offices, ultra-high net worth individuals, and existing investors.

Mobile game development studio Nautilus Mobile raised $5.4 million led by KRAFTON.

Gupshup, a conversational messaging-tech company acquired Knowlarity Communications, a cloud communications startup.