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December has not started on a positive note for the Indian startups with venture funding seeing a marginal increase in the second week. The rise in the inflow was largely driven by one transaction of a young GenAI startup in an otherwise tepid environment.

The total funding inflow stood at $111 million across 15 deals. In comparison, the previous week saw startups raise a total of $57 million.

Venture capital funding has been in lacklustre territory even in November when the total capital raised stood at $590 million, as per YourStory Research.

So far in 2023, startups have together raised a total funding of $13 billion compared to $24 billion that companies raised in 2022.

The biggest question is whether this trend will continue even into next year or if will there be a change. Going by available indicators, it is unlikely that there will be any dramatic change.

The week also saw the unfortunate shutdown of the fintech startup ZestMoney, which was due to the combination of regulatory changes and the inability to raise capital.

On a positive note, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) startup Sarvam.ai has raised funding and this gives hope to other companies that are present in this segment.

The rest of December is unlikely to see any major action as the year has almost come to an end. Startups

will have to remain prudent in their financial activity with realistic expectations.

Key transactions

Gen AI startup Sarvam AI raised $41 million in Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partnersand supported by Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures.

D2C startup The Sleep Company raised $22 million from Premji Invest and Fireside Ventures.

CoreEL Technologies has raised $16 million from 360 ONE Asset Management.

Dairy fintech startup Digivriddhi Technologies raised $6 million from Omidyar Network India, Omnivore and InfoEdge Ventures.