Startups in Hyderabad are seeing an uptick in funding as investors return to the city after a hiatus caused in part by the political instability in the region.
According to Tracxn, which collects data on the Indian Startup industry, 25 Hyderabad-based ventures have been funded so far this year, compared to 20 during the same time period last year and the list is only getting longer.
NowFloats, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup, is close to raising Series-B funds, confirmed Jasminder Singh Gulati, its Co-Founder, without revealing more details.
Endiya Partners, an early-stage venture capital fund has committed to investing an undisclosed amount in two start-ups here — a SaaS and a digital health company – making this their first investment in startups from the city. Their previous investments have been in companies from Bengaluru and Gurugram.
Sateesh Andra, Managing Director of Endiya Partners, attributes this increase in investment activity to a healthy startup ecosystem which is slowly being built in Hyderabad.
“The universities here – ISB, IIIT-H, BITS – academic infrastructure, R&D centres, MNCs, T-Hub, certain angel investors active in the city, and folks like us – a combination of all this presents a very healthy ecosystem,” said Andra. “We will see more and more of these startups getting funded and growing big.”
MyDentistChoice, a B2B ecommerce startup, received angel funding of $150,000 two months ago and hopes to raise Series funding by the end of this year.
“Visibility for Hyderabad startups is growing for sure, and we see a lot people approaching us for next-level funding,” said Siva Prasad, Co-Founder of MyDentistChoice.
Aruna Reddy from the Indian School of Business agrees that the ecosystem in the city is becoming more startup-friendly, but she worries that as more startups come up, the first-time failure rate could discourage the new entrepreneurs.
Source: The Economic Times
