Start-up funding declines 25% in first half of 2025
The start-up funding landscape across different stages continues to show a downward trend as start-ups raised only $4.8 billion, a 25% year-on-year (YoY) decline in the first half of 2025 compared to $6.4 billion in January-June 2024. This funding in H1 2025 is about 19% lower compared to July-December 2024 ($5.9 billion).
According to market intelligence platform Tracxn's India Tech Semi-Annual Funding Report H1 2025, seed stage funding dropped by 44% to $452 million compared to $802 million in H 1 2024. Early-stage and late-stage funding too declined 16% y-o-y and 27% YoY, respectively. The first half of this year witnessed only five 100 million+ funding rounds when compared to 9 such rounds in H2 2024 and 10 in H1 2024. This slowdown in funding is attributed to various factors including the present macro-economic environment.
Neha Singh, co-founder, Tracxn, said, 'While the funding volumes have come down compared to the previous year, India's tech ecosystem continues to show resilience and maturity. Strong interest in sectors like transportation, retail, and enterprise tech signals investor conviction in solving large, structural challenges."
About 12 start-ups went public in the first half of this year compared to 21 in H1 2024. This includes Ather Energy, Tankup, SS Innovations International and Infonative Solutions. Also, two unicorns emerged in H1 2025, compared to three unicorns in H1 2024.
With 26% of the overall funding, Bengaluru emerged as the leader in total funds raised during this period, followed by Delhi at 25%. Interestingly, the report points out that out of the 89 unicorns (out of a total of 119) which disclosed their financials as of March 2024, only 26 unicorns were profitable. FinTech and Retail unicorns such as Zerodha, CoinDCX, OfBusiness, Infra.Market, and Oxyzo are leading in profitability.
H1 2025 witnessed 73 acquisitions compared to 54 acquisitions in the year-ago period. The most notable acquisition was Magma General Insurance, acquired by DS Group and Patanjali Ayurved for $516 million, followed by Minimalist, acquired by HUL for $350 million.
The report also highlights that Bengaluru dominates with $50 billion in unicorn funding, followed by Gurugram with $13.1 billion in funding, primarily in the gig economy sector.
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