India-based startups raised dollar 39 bn in 2021 mortality rate down to 1 per cent

The report on the democratisation of India's startup ecosystem showed a total funding of $39 billion, a rise of 255 per cent from $11.8 billion in 2020.

Besides, the startup mortality rate came down to 1 per cent in 2021 as India witnessed a remarkable reduction in the number of dead-pooled businesses as against 16 per cent in 2016.

Last year also saw an additional 70 per cent increase in first-time angel investors. India now has around 60 angel networks.

According to the Grant Thornton report, VC and angel fund corpus grew from $10.7 billion in 2020 to $28.5 billion in 2021, recording a 266 per cent increase.

Notably, the report cited that the surge in activity has partially been the result of India-specific innovations.

It said that confluence of startups focused on addressing the needs of Bharat and the opening up of this new market has further given an impetus to funding activity across various levels in the country.

"Investors have now shown increased trust in India, with many national and international entities directing their investments towards the economy. For FY 2021-22 (year to date), India received foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow of USD 82 billion, a 10% increase over the previous year. 

The growth was a result of the government's proactive approach to implement measures to ease business for startups," said Vicky Bahl, Partner, Growth, Grant Thornton Bharat.

"From being ranked 142 on the ease of doing business scale in 2014, India quickly rose to a rank of 63 in 2020," Bahl added.

Besides, the other possible reason for the stark decline in startup mortality, as per the report, can be investors evaluating startup investments as a viable investment alternative.

"The changing perceptions around entrepreneurship, efficient access to funding and accelerated technological growth enabled the start-up ecosystem boom across all sectors in the past decade. India has now become the third most preferred destination, after the US and and China, for technology startups," Bahl said.