Bengaluru: Investment flowed back in the week before Diwali. Twenty-eight Indian startups raised a combined $258.1 million between November 2 and November 7, against about $115 million raised by the same number of companies a week earlier. That is more than double.
The total covers three growth-stage rounds and 17 early-stage deals, two of them undisclosed.
The largest was GIVA, the jewellery brand, which raised $100 million in a round led by Multiples Alternate Asset Management. Bengaluru's EloElo Group came next with an $80 million Series C led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal. The company runs the microdrama platform Story TV, and the round takes its total raise to $130 million.
The third big cheque went to Peppermint Robotics, which works out of Pune and Austin. It raised Rs 100 crore, about $10.5 million, in a pre-Series B round led by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners. The company builds autonomous cleaning and material-handling robots deployed in nine countries, and will use the money to expand manufacturing, develop a cleanroom robotics line and grow in the US, Asia and Europe.
Early-stage startups took $67.6 million across 17 deals. Pune-based health-tech firm Clinics On Cloud led with a $12.5 million Series A from Dubai investors through Model42. Bengaluru's specialty chemicals startup altM followed with $10.3 million led by Rainmatter by Zerodha and Mela Ventures.
Two Point O Capital, an AI-powered clean energy platform, raised $10 million, and wealthtech firm PowerUp Money raised $10 million led by Flourish Ventures with Peak XV Partners, Accel and Blume Ventures participating.
Bengaluru led on deal count with six. Delhi-NCR and Mumbai had five each. Pune, Hyderabad and Gandhinagar also featured.
E-commerce and AI startups led by sector with three deals each, followed by healthtech, manufacturing, fintech, foodtech and gaming with two each.
The eight-week average works out to roughly $198 million a week across 23 deals, so this week ran ahead of the trend.
The week also brought nine senior appointments, one departure, two new fund launches and an ESOP buyback. Provision Labs, the physical AI venture founded by Pronto's Anjali Sardana, acquired Mumbai-based hardware startup Basilisk Industries for an undisclosed sum.