Investors are pumping money into Indian startups.
In the first six months of 2015, India’s startups have received more funding from venture capitalists (VCs) than the whole of last year. Until June 2015, VCs poured in $2.46 billion (Rs15,700 crore) worth of investments into Indian startups, compared to $2.34 billion (Rs14,950 crore) in all of 2014. In 2013, according to VCCEdge, a New Delhi-based financial research firm, only about $1.46 billion (Rs9,322 crore) was invested.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been 197 VC deals in India. These included the $400 million (Rs2,553 crore) investment in taxi hailing app Ola by DST Global, GIC, Falcon and Tiger Global in April 2015. This was followed by a $133 million (Rs849 crore) investment by Warburg Pincus in Ecom Express, a Delhi-based e-commerce logistics solutions provider in June 2015.
Meanwhile, angel funding in the country has also seen a dramatic rise. So far in 2015, there have been 221 angel investments worth $120 million (Rs766 crore). In all of 2014, there were 313 deals worth $121 million (Rs772 crore).
“We have just seen a cycle where people are very excited to invest in India Internet, especially mobile, which has unprecedented availability of capital,” Shailendra Singh, managing director at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India, told The Economic Times newspaper.
And the party is unlikely to be over soon. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has predicted that India’s startup ecosystem will add some 8,500 new firms by 2020. That’ll mean more entrepreneurs, more investors—and a lot more money.