Top 10 Funding Rounds In India’s Startup Ecosystem Since 2012

The startups in India may never ride the high waves of year 2014 and 2015 but the year 2017 proved that big ticket funding is not a thing of the past. After a year of drought in 2016, the stars of the Indian startup ecosystem came back to prove they still possess the confidence of the investors.

Since 2012, the top ten rounds in Indian startup ecosystem have all been above $100 million. They have been split across five companies: One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm, e-commerce sites Flipkart and Snapdeal, cab-hailing company Olacabs and internet company Atria Convergence Technologies, which is an only non-unicorn firm among all.

This month Flipkart closed the largest deal ever till date in the second tranche of the its Series J round worth $2.5 billion from SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund. Flipkart is India’s most well-funded startup and had four other rounds make it to the top ten. All these rounds have already made Flipkart third most funded private company in the world.

Amusingly, all of the money invested into Indian startups in 2016 is $3.39 billion which is less than half of Flipkart’s total funding.

Since year 2012, 5 of the top-10 biggest rounds were closed in 2015, and the year became the year that saw the largest funding totals of $8.79 billion. But the following year no mega-rounds were closed, despite 2016 seeing a peak in deal activity at 965 total deals.

Top Funding Rounds in India Tech 2012-2017 YTD(8/17/2017)

Rank	Company	Round	Amount ($M)	Date	Round Investors
1	Flipkart	Series J – II	2500	8/10/17	SoftBank Group
2	Flipkart	Series J	1400	3/20/17	Tencent Holdings, DST Global, Microsoft, eBay, Accel Partners
2	One97 Communications	Corporate Minority – IV	1400	5/18/17	SoftBank Group
4	Flipkart	Series G	1000	7/29/14	Accel Partners India, ICONIQ Capital, Sofina, Vanguard Group, Naspers, GIC, DST Global, Morgan Stanley, Tiger Global Management
5	Flipkart	Series H	700	12/20/14	Tiger Global Management, Baillie Gifford & Co., Steadview Capital, ICONIQ Capital, Greenoaks Capital Management, Vanguard Group, GIC, DST Global, Qatar Investment Authority, T. Rowe Price
6	One97 Communications	Corporate Minority – III	680	9/29/15	Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba Group
7	Snapdeal	Corporate Minority – II	627	10/28/14	SoftBank Group
8	Flipkart	Series I	550	5/19/15	Tiger Global Management
9	Olacabs	Series F – II	500	9/28/15	Didi Chuxing
9	Atria Convergence Technologies	Private Equity	500	7/1/15	Argan Capital Advisors, TA Associates
9	Snapdeal	Corporate Minority – III	500	8/2/15	PremjiInvest, Alibaba Group, Myriad Capital, SoftBank Group, Foxconn Technology Company, Temasek Holdings, BlackRock

New York's Tiger Global Management also participated in three of India’s top rounds: Flipkart’s $1B Series G and $700M Series H rounds in 2014, as well as its $550M Series I in 2015.

Japan’s SoftBank Group was involved in three of India’s top rounds -- one to Flipkart, another to One97 Communications in a $1.4B corporate minority round, and the third to e-commerce site Snapdeal in a corporate minority round that it raised in October 2014.