Chennai startups brave funding winter, raise $1 bn in a year for the first time
Chennai startups braved the funding winter to cross the USD 1-billion funding mark for the first time in a year in 2022, according to data from Tracxn, a platform that provides curated profiles of over 1,00,000 startups.
The city’s startups raised USD 1.5 billion this year, up 71 percent from USD 876 million in 2021, even as young companies in other major Indian cities struggled to attract investors amid a so-called funding winter.
Delhi-NCR has been hit the hardest as its startups saw funding drop 52 percent to USD 5 billion in 2022. While Bengaluru retains its pole position as the most attractive destination in India for venture capital, with USD 11.7 billion, it is 46 percent lower, compared to the previous year, Tracxn data showed.
Meanwhile, funding for Mumbai startups dropped 26 percent to USD 4 billion in 2022 whereas Pune startups fared comparatively better as their cumulative funding during the year fell by just around 1.5 percent to USD 985 million. According to the Tracxn, the funding winter of 2022 led to Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai seeing the fewest number of startup deals in the last five years.
