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This week, 23 Indian startups raised $356.8 million across six growth-stage deals, 17 early-stage deals, and two undisclosed rounds. The week also recorded five key appointments, one departure, two mergers and acquisitions, and a new fund launch. In contrast, 25 startups had collectively secured about $303.7 million in the previous week. [Growth-stage deals] Growth-stage startups raised $182 million across six deals this week. Bengaluru-based restaurant company Popo Global led the pack with $56 million from Artal Asia, followed by women’s wellness brand Nua, which raised $50 million in a Series C round led by Peak XV Partners. Workforce accommodation startup HerSpace Manufacturing secured a $40 million commitment from Gray Matters Capital, while quick food delivery startup Swish raised $24 million led by Bertelsmann India Investments. Fleet management platform Carrum Mobility raised $10 million in a Series B round led by Uber, while pet food brand Lickicious secured Rs 19 crore led by Prath Ventures. [Early-stage deals] Early-stage startups raised $174.8 million across 15 deals this week. Space-tech startup Pixxel led the pack with a $100 million Series C round co-led by Temasek and Seraphim Space, followed by cybersecurity firm QNu Labs, which raised Rs 200 crore in a Series A1 round co-led by the National Quantum Mission and Speciale Invest. Cardless payments platform Piston raised $15 million in a Series A round led by FPV Ventures, while AI-powered patient safety startup Graph AI secured $13.3 million led by Insight Partners. Fashion brand Theater raised Rs 75 crore at a Rs 410 crore post-money valuation, while Cooling-as-a-Service platform Circolife secured $4.5 million. Other funded startups included voice AI startup Navana.ai, B2B pharma distribution platform Fundly.ai, AI-powered water infrastructure firm DigitalPaani, and several others. YoLearn.ai, SpeakX, Neurotech and deeptech firm BQP also raised capital, with amounts undisclosed. [City and segment-wise deals] Bengaluru led the funding charts with 14 startup deals during the week, followed by Delhi-NCR with four. Mumbai, Thane and Kerala also recorded deals. AI startups led the sectors with five deals, followed by foodtech, healthtech, fintech, F&B and deeptech with two deals each, while spacetech, proptech, mobility, e-commerce and other sectors also saw funding activity. [Series-wise deals] Series A and seed rounds led the week with seven deals each, followed by Series B, pre-seed and undisclosed rounds with two deals each. Series C and pre-Series A recorded one deal each. [Week-on-week funding trend] On a weekly basis, startup funding increased over 17% to $356.8 million from $303.7 million raised in the previous week. The average weekly funding over the past eight weeks stood at around $232.37 million across 21 deals. [Key Hirings / Departures] Enterprise software startup Whatfix appointed co-founder Vara Kumar as CEO, effective immediately, following the demise of co-founder Khadim Batti on September 1. NIIF appointed Gauravjit Singh as managing partner and global head of capital formation. Bhartiya Converge named Eric Pagdiwalla as chief operating officer, while Honasa Consumer elevated Nishchay Bahl to chief business officer, offline. Ajit Mohan stepped down as Snap’s chief business officer and will return to Singapore to spend more time with his family. Snap named EMEA President Ronan Harris as chief commercial officer. [Mergers and Acquisitions] Swiggy has agreed to sell its retail distribution business Lynk Logistics to B2B e-commerce platform Udaan for Rs 500 crore. Meanwhile, Kochi-based Cyrix Healthcare has acquired the MedTech Solutions business of Blue Star Engineering & Electronics. [Fund launches] Healthcare-focused venture firm W Health Ventures (WHV) has closed its second fund at Rs 700 crore, oversubscribing its initial target of Rs 630 crore. The fund plans to build 8–10 healthcare companies from the pre-idea stage to category leaders over the next four years. [New launches and partnerships] ▪️ Multipl launches spending app on UPI, targets two lakh users and Rs 200 crore in 12 months ▪️ Agnikul Cosmos expands infrastructure for reusable rocket testing ▪️ Upstox launches US stocks investing, opens access to 8,000+ US stocks and 2,000+ ETFs ▪️ PB Pay launches payment aggregation platform for businesses ▪️ Sarvam, Mahindra Finance expand Voice AI partnership across sales, collections and employee engagement ▪️ Xflow partners with HSBC to launch India collections for global businesses [News flash this week] ▪️ Zomato, Swiggy deliver near-Meituan unit economics despite 22X smaller Indian market ▪️ Flipkart Minutes clocks 4X growth in two years, expands to more than 150 cities ▪️ Groww adds 2.23 lakh active clients in August; Sahi clocks 11% growth ▪️ RNFI Services receives RBI in-principle authorisation to operate as a Payment Aggregator – Physical [Summary] On a weekly basis, startup funding surged over 39% to $303.7 million from $218.7 million raised in the previous week. India’s food delivery market is nearly 22X smaller than China’s, yet Zomato and Swiggy are already close to Chinese giant Meituan on key unit economics. While Meituan operates at a vastly larger scale, it generated around $0.3 in operating profit per order at its peak in Q2 2024, compared with around $0.2 in adjusted EBITDA per order for Zomato and Swiggy in Q1 FY27, according to Bernstein. Flipkart Minutes has completed two years of operations, with the quick commerce platform growing 4X year-on-year and expanding to nearly 1,200 micro-fulfilment centres across over 150 cities. Around 60% of its customers return to the platform, while its customer base across Tier II and smaller cities has grown nearly 25X year-on-year. Consumer fintech platform Multipl has launched a UPI-based spending account that allows users to keep money for everyday expenses invested in liquid mutual funds until needed. The launch follows a pilot with over 20,000 users and Rs 20 crore in investments, along with around Rs 4 crore in UPI transactions. Multipl plans to scale the product to about 2 lakh users and Rs 200 crore in investments over the next six to 12 months. Agnikul Cosmos has opened two new units at its Chennai facility to test reusable rocket stages under flight-like conditions and manufacture key launch vehicle components in-house. The facilities were inaugurated in the presence of Gaganyaan astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla. RNFI Services has received in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator – Physical (PA-P). The approval will allow the company to expand into physical, offline and in-store payments, subject to fulfilment of RBI’s requirements for final authorisation. Upstox has launched US stock investing on its platform, allowing Indian users to invest in over 8,000 US-listed stocks and more than 2,000 ETFs directly through its app. The offering also supports fractional investing, with investments starting from as little as $1. PB Fintech’s payment aggregator platform PB Pay has launched operations and is now open for merchant sign-ups and transaction processing. Licensed by the RBI in February 2026, the platform allows merchants to accept multiple payment modes through a single integration and dashboard. Mahindra Finance has expanded its voice AI partnership with Bengaluru-based Sarvam across sales, collections and employee engagement. Voice agents developed by Mahindra AI on Sarvam’s platform operate across 12 Indian languages and have completed over one crore customer calls to date. At Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026, cross-border payments platform Xflow partnered with HSBC to enable global businesses to collect payments from Indian customers through cards, net banking and UPI, without setting up a local entity in India.
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