Start-Ups Face Valuation Cuts While Chasing Fresh Capital

Indian start-up ecosystem has faced a valuation reality check, with the growing number of companies raise funds at sharply reduced valuations. As many as 55 start-ups across sectors like fintech, SaaS, and consumer internet, have raised funds at sharply reduced valuations, as per Tracxn data.

These start-ups include Meesho which secured $275 million last year at a $3.9 billion valuation (reduced from $4.9 billion), Oyo raised $175 million in 2023 at a valuation of about $2.5 billion (drop from previous high of $10 billion), Cred which raised $75 million at $3.5 billion valuation (nearly 45% down from its peak of $6.5 billion).

The list also includes Swiggy, which lowered its valuation while preparing for IPO. The food delivery giant raised $46 million in 2023.

In addition, a diverse mix of start-ups—including Flipkart, Pratilipi, Shiprocket, MobiKwik, GreyHR, Zolo, Lendingkart, Udaan, PayMate, Pepperfry, OfBusiness, and Fisdom—have also seen their valuations trimmed.

These markdowns occurred across both primary and secondary deals, as many of these firms reassess their private market worth ahead of potential IPOs.

Indian Tech Start-Ups Funding

India's tech start-ups raised $2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 13.64% increase over the previous quarter and an 8.7% rise from the year-ago period, a feat that secured its spot as the third most-funded country globally after the US and UK, according to a report by market intelligence platform Tracxn.

The report highlighted that auto tech, enterprise applications and retail were the top-performing sectors in Q1 2025.

Other notable takeaways from the report were the increase in funding for late-stage start-ups both sequentially and year-on-year basis, even as seed-stage start-ups as early-stage ventures saw total funding drop on both counts.

Six companies went for IPO in Q1 2025, the report said adding Nukleus, Maxvolt Energy, Volercars, and Harshil Agrotech were among the companies that went public.

There were no unicorns created in Q1 2025 as against two created in Q1 2024.