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The Last 5 Weeks

April 30, 2020

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The Last 5 Weeks

The last month or to be precise the last 5 weeks have been so staggering for the human race that none of us would have dreamt in our wildest dreams that in the 21st century mankind will have to endure a situation so alarming that we yet have to find a way out of it completely. Needless to say, the impact of the #COVID-19  #pandemic has not only affected the common man but businesses have been affected even more. Be it large enterprises, small or medium, all are facing the brunt, however evidently, the lot which has taken the beating most are start-ups and budding entrepreneurs specifically in certain sectors. With investors too becoming extra cautious and funding too drying up #startups are one of the worst hit sectors in this environment.

Though the above narrative is very negative and stressful, we also know for a fact that historically such downturns have also lead to business disruptions and transformations which have opened up a plethora of opportunities to the tenacious entrepreneurs. We have also noticed some amount of positive movement in this direction, specifically related to startup #funding

The above numbers might look surprising though a pleasant and welcome surprise. Funding of $230+ million in the last 5 weeks, clearly indicates that investors have been consistently evaluating and re-instilling their faith in Indian start-ups even during COVID. Even though the funding scenario has dampened, investors have become more specific, proactive and are taking a futuristic growth approach.

Investor are targeting start-ups which are sector specific and offer solutions that can be useful for the customers in these COVID times. A case in example is Camp K12, an #edtech start-up offering coding courses for children on topics like Augmented reality (#AR), Android #App, #3D coding & #VR Game Development, #AI & Machine learning Code intelligent #bots, Web development with HTML, CSS, JS and so on. Start-ups such as Camp K12 with unique business models and offerings that will stand the test of times are attracting lot of investor’s interest.

If we look at sectors which were key focus areas for investors- understandably #Fintech, #Edtech and #Healthcare dominated the funding in terms of number of deals and also based on the growth and impact these sectors will create in the near future. Fintech dominates funding in all its segments, investors have shown interest not only in digital #payments but also in #lending as well as wealth management. Last but not the least Software as a Service (#SaaS), while not a vertical, lot of recent fundings are all for vertical specific SaaS offerings.

Though it is too early to be all gung-ho about the funding scenario, but in these depressing times, even a tiny ray of hope is something we can latch on to. This also makes me wonder whether the interest in specific sectors are signals about times to come. Are we actually moving towards an age where all transactions will become digital, there will be no paper currencies, no physical schools, universities-everything online, even no physical office structures, most health issues treated online?

Seems too far-fetched! But who knows….who would have imagined a few months back that there will be a time in our lifetime when all of mankind will be locked in their homes. A tiny virus has created havoc in our lives.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments about how you see this situation playing out and what according to you will become a new normal for us.

Written by: Ashish Gupta, asgupta@nasscom.in

Source: New articles, Entracker, Tracxn, Insta Financial…

 


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