Significant Traction in Start-Up Investments In 2015: Grant Thornton

Other fairly large transactions include investment in Quickr, Jabong, Ecomexpress, Grofers, Foodpanda, Shopclues, Pepperfry and Oyorooms who have received funding of more than $100 million.

Investors such as Accel Partners, Blume Ventures, Tiger Global, Kaalari Capital, SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital, IDG Ventures, the Indian Angel and Mumbai Angel Network continue to dominate the market, the report said.

Moreover, M&A activity continued to rise in this space with Alibaba acquiring stake in Paytm, OlaCab's acquisition of TaxiForSure, Jasper's acquisition of Freecharge.com, Zomato's acquisition of IAC-Urbanspoon etc.

"Slight pessimism had started setting in the second half of 2015 with startups shutting down and retrenching employees. However, in 2016 we expect that new innovative startups will continue to attract investors' interest," Grant Thornton India Director Kinnari Gandhi said.

Gandhi further noted that in 2016, "there will be increased rationality in this ecosystem, funding may get tougher and focus will increase to fundamentals, justification around valuations and scalability."

There may be a fewer number of unicorns in the making as a result of this, he said adding that consolidation will be on the rise and valuations in this space may still be aggressive.