Even as April saw poster boys of the start-up ecosystem Flipkart and Ola rack up funds, overall investments touched new lows.

Venture capital funding marked a 22-month low at $125 million across 31 deals. The number of investments shrank by 6 per cent compared with the same period last year, while value dropped 20 per cent. Month-on-month, value of investments was down by as much as 80 per cent and volume fell by more than 18 per cent, data from Venture Intelligence shows.

“The Indian ecosystem, by and large, is going through an introspection. With big bets in e-Commerce made, the verdict (and rewards) with Flipkart will have a lot to say about venture capital in India. Close to $90 billion has been invested in India over the past 10 years with less than $16 billion returned – which isn’t even the capital amount recovered – and hence those who invest in India-focused funds have shown skepticism about India as a market for the past two years,” said Vijay Anand, Founder, The Startup Centre.

Experts in the industry said that this could be the time when the ecosystem goes back to the drawing board. Sanjay Vijayakumar, Co-Founder and CEO, MobME Wireless and Chairman, SV.CO, a digital incubator, said, “My perspective is that a tough financial environment is a great time for entrepreneurial founders to follow the maxim: Every expense is justified by increase in revenue.”

Source: Economic Times