Tiger Global pumped in $2.2 bn in Indian start-ups in 2021

New-York based investment firm Tiger Global has infused nearly $2.25 billion into Indian start-ups in 2021, making it the top private investor in the new-age tech firms of India, as per the data sourced from research firm Venture Intelligence by Business Today. Tiger’s allocation of $2.25 billion in India came out of the $6.7 billion fund that it closed in April this year, which proves the risk appetite and optimism the investment giant has when it comes to an aggressively expanding market like India.

Venture Intelligence data suggests that Tiger Global was the lead investor in at least 19 of the 42 large funding rounds, which led to the birth of unicorns of 2021. These unicorns included Pristyn Care, Slice, Upstox, Spinny, No Broker, Mensa Brands, CoinSwitch Kuber, Vedantu, Apna, Grofers, BharatPe, Blackbuck, Moglix, Urban Company, ChargeBee, ShareChat, Groww, Infra.Market, and Innovacer.

In terms of the total number of deals, California-headquartered Sequoia Capital topped the list, participating in the maximum funding rounds at 102, followed by Tiger Global that wrote cheques for 56 deals. The other VC firms which participated in the highest number of investments rounds include Accel India (56), Blume Ventures(38) and Matrix Partners ( 37).

Top 5 investors by capital

Japanese tech investment giant Softbank invested $1.57 billion in start-ups from India this year after hitting a brief pause on its funding spree during the first half of 2020. Some of the biggest bets of SoftBank in India this year include Meesho, Zeta, OfBusiness, MindTickle, and Eruditus.  The other VCs who wrote big cheques, apart from Tiger Global and Softbank, include Falcon Edge capital ($1.12 billion), followed by Prosus Ventures ( $925 million) and Temasek ( $909 million), as per VC data.

Indian start-ups cumulatively raised more than $34 billion in investments in 2021, a 200 per cent YOY increase, compared to $11.2 billion investments from VCs in 2020. The deal volume in 2021, according to the study, also increased by almost 28 per cent YoY as of December 17. The number of deals in 2021 stood at 1,009 as compared to 788 deals in 2020 and 879 in 2019.

India also produced the record number of unicorns ( start-ups valued $1 billion or more) in 2021, with COVID-19-induced acceleration in digitisation, Internet penetration and cheap data fueling the positive sentiments from the overseas and domestic investors.

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