India's leading tech platform for private market investment LetsVenture captures the state of the private market investment landscape in the country in its annual report, The Great Metamorphosis: Private Market Investing Outlook, Insights and Projections 2023-24, packed with data and insights from top investors and industry practitioners.
From our qualitative research and interviews with leading VCs and investors, the report outlines 10 key trends that point to a maturing startup ecosystem.
One of the key findings shows that the theme for 2024 will be the maturity of the startup ecosystem. This is a time when it matures and settles down. And 2025 is when it hits the inflection point.
Another key finding shows that Limited Partner (LP) sentiments, both domestic and global, towards the Indian startup ecosystem, and the ‘India story’ is at an all-time high.
It also shows that founders have settled in a realistic startup market with a marked difference between entrepreneurs and fundraising pitches during the funding euphoria in 2020 and 2021 versus today.
On the other hand, FOMO investing is also receding and every investor is developing their conviction rather than piggybacking on other’s due diligence which was more commonly found in 2020 and 2021.
Investors also anticipate less frequent but larger cheque sizes in early-stage deals and hope to capitalize on these opportunities, among other things.
Here is a complete picture of ecosystem trends in 2023-24
2023-24 Ecosystem Trends
- Markets mature: The Indian startup ecosystem likely to hit an inflection point in 2025
- Strong belief in India story: LP sentiment towards India is at an all-time high
- FOMO investing recedes: Investors learn to build their own conviction
- Less frequent but rich funding rounds to surface in early-stage deals
- Founders have settled in a realistic startup market
- Valuation enigma is a major fundraising hurdle
- IPO green shoots: More startups to go public in 2024
- Equidebt: Alternate forms of investing on the rise
- There’s greater investor scrutiny of governance
- Startup investments offer family offices a chance to explore ‘burn’ culture, a significant increase in engagement between funds and LPs, and other family office trends
LetsVenture continued to be the most consistently active investor with 159 deals in CY 2023 as well as 11 exits with returns ranging from 2X to 5X.
The top sectors on LetsVenture are cleantech (electric vehicle and renewable energy), deeptech (internet of things, unmanned aerial vehicles, spacetech, robotic process automation, and Web3), enterprisetech (SaaS and enterprise services), and fintech.
Shanti Mohan, Founder and CEO, LetsVenture and trica, said: “This year at LetsVenture we have seen a further tightening of commitments from investors in H1 and H2, nonetheless in the last couple of months we are seeing signs of revival. As a team, we have been very selective in our commitments (as is obvious by market conditions) and spent a lot of time with our founders, supporting them with business feedback, and customer introductions.”
Through LetsVenture and trica – our growth-stage investment platform for family offices – we have enabled over 1000 rounds of funding worth $250 million in early-to-growth and pre-IPO startups since inception.
About LetsVenture and trica
LetsVenture is a pioneering marketplace for early-stage startup investing that ensures fundraising in India’s private market is easy, efficient, and transparent for both startups and investors.
Since it started in 2013, LetsVenture has raised over $250 million for 650+ startups with a portfolio value of over $11B. The LetsVenture platform has more than 20K+ investors from 60 countries.
LetsVenture is backed by Accel, Chiratae Ventures, Nandan Nilekani, Ratan Tata, Rishad Premji, Mohandas Pai, Sharad Sharma, and Anupam Mittal.
The company’s larger goal has led it to deliver timely products and features, making it a one-stop destination for private market investments from early-stage to growth-stage both for investors as well as founders.
In 2021, LetsVenture launched its technology platform for growth-stage investments and family office trica capital and equity management, cap table & ESOP management tool trica equity.
In 2022, LetsVenture launched Scalix, a Founder OS product to make starting up easy for early-stage founders. Scalix offers assistance for a range of operations from community building to resources on industry best practices, access to service providers, and product deals.
(More insights on The Great Metamorphosis: LetsVenture’s Private Market Investing Outlook, Insights & Projections 2023-24. Get the full report here)
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