SME Times News Bureau | 27 Dec, 2019
Indian start-ups witnessed more investment in 2019
with the amount increasing to Rs 639 crore in the year from Rs 334 crore in
2018, said a report on Friday.
This was driven by a 22 per cent increase in the
number of deals and a 70 per cent increase in deal size, said the report by InnoVen
Capital, a leading venture debt firm.
The report revealed that investors are more open to funding start-ups in the
pre-revenue stage, which is reflected in the share of pre-revenue funded
start-ups increasing to 17 per cent this year from 12 per cent in 2018.
This trend is driven by concept stage ventures launched by second time
entrepreneurs and experienced first-time operators.
The report also revealed that investors continue to show preference to backing
more experienced founders, with the proportion of founders with at least five
years experience going up from 55 per cent in 2017 to 82 per cent this year.
"Early stage investment activity has been very robust this year, with
increased deal flow, bigger transaction sizes and higher valuations,"
Ashish Sharma, CEO, InnoVen Capital India, said in a statement.
"The competitive intensity in early stage has gone up, with a large set of
institutional and angel investors looking to find the right
opportunities," Sharma said.
The research revealed that Bengaluru, the National Capital Region (NCR) and
Mumbai continue to form the core of the start-up eco-system.
The share of Bengaluru (37 per cent) and Mumbai (20 per cent) hovered around
2018 levels while NCR saw a significant rise, increasing from 17 per cent in
2018 to 29 per cent this year.
Consumer Internet, enterprise tech/Artificial Intelligence (AI), fintech and
ed-tech emerged as the most active sectors for early stage investors.
Investors believe that this trend will continue but indicated that they would
like to do more in enterprise tech & AI and fintech in 2020.
Almost 50 per cent of early stage investors felt that the valuations in 2019
were on the higher side due to intense competition for quality deals, said the
report titled "InnoVen Capital: Early Stage Investment Insights Report
2019".
However, the majority (56 per cent) foresee some correction in the valuations
in 2020.
This report is based on inputs from reputed early stage institutional
investors.