What's in store for startups

On the global front, even the recent economic headwinds could not deter India's startup growth story. While the current statistics show the trajectory of startups blooming, but an overall conservative funding sentiment in the ecosystem cannot be ignored

- Resham Suhail

THE YEAR 2022 started on a very high note with 43 unicorns added in 45 weeks since the start of 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav' on March 12, 2021. But eventually the funding winter crept in. According to a PwC India report, startup funding in India has hit a two-year low at US$ 2.7 billion in the third quarter of 2022. In the July-September period, only two startups i.e. health tech startup Img and delivery startup Shiprocket joined the unicorn club. Img became India's fifth healthtech unicorn after raising US$ 40 million in a round led by Tata Digital. The latest startup to join the unicorn club in August 2022, Shiprocket, a Gurugram-based third-party logistics service provider founded by Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Gautam Kapoor and Akshay Gulati received US$ 30 million.

TURBULENT TIMES

The Infosys Co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani recently said that he admired the present-day young founders' business understanding and strategic thinking but worried if they were building for the long haul. The recent bloodbath in the Indian startup ecosystem has been a cruel picture of how businesses have been built. Cutting back on spending, rising inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war and economic uncertainty have been the dominating factors for the layoff saga across the sectors.