2024 a record-breaking year for Indian startups with 12 IPOs and billions raised – CNBC TV18
This year also marked a significant payoff for venture capitalists (VCs). Years of patient investment in startups yielded massive returns, with VC funds earning over $4 billion through IPOs and public market sales—double of what they earned in 2023 and 2.5 times that of 2022. Industry giants like SoftBank, Peak XV, Accel, Elevation Capital, and Prosus turned their bold investments into extraordinary successes on Dalal Street.
The IPO boom wasn’t just serendipity. It was underpinned by India’s resilient economic growth, favorable market conditions, and progressive regulatory improvements. While IPO activity in the US, China, and Europe remained subdued, India’s startups seized the moment. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, India emerged as a global outlier, with Swiggy’s $1.35 billion IPO—a standout tech listing globally—leading the charge. This success was driven by a growing investor appetite for profitable, tech-driven innovations.
Looking ahead, 2025 is set to continue this momentum, with an even bigger IPO pipeline. At least 25 startups, including Zetwerk, Meesho, Bluestone, Urban Company, Zepto, Groww, and Pine Labs, are preparing to hit the public markets.
2024 also saw a resurgence of major funding rounds, with VC firms injecting over $10 billion into the ecosystem. Zepto alone raised more than $1 billion, and family offices played a larger role, contributing over $1 billion to startup investments.
To reflect on 2024’s milestones and the promise of 2025, CNBC-TV18 spoke with Mukul Arora, Co-Managing Partner at Elevation Capital, and Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel, for their insights on India’s dynamic startup landscape.
Below are the excerpts of the discussion.
Q: To your mind, what would be the stand out trends, the big performers in the year gone by?
Arora: We have to step back and look at the last 3-4 years together. So 2021 and early 2022 was a period when we saw a lot of capital coming into the startup ecosystem. And then, as the capital markets dried up, the last two and a half years have been years of efficiency. There have also been years that have really separated high-quality companies from not-so-great companies. Therefore this year we have seen a lot of questions about the Indian startup ecosystem being answered in a very, very comprehensive manner.
We always used to hear questions like: Is the India market large enough or not? We have seen a lot of categories in India that have now become very large, whether it’s $100 billion in Indian marketplaces, whether it is $10 billion in ad revenue, and I can go on and on.
Second, we used to hear a lot of questions about whether these companies ever made money. They make GMV, but will they ever be profitable? Again, we have seen a lot of companies become very clearly profitable and generate hundreds of millions of cash.
Third were questions about exits. We have seen finally lot of very strong exits and a very attractive reception of public markets for these companies. So I would say this has been a coming-of-age year for the Indian startup ecosystem where finally they have moved from being startups to established businesses and will hopefully keep compounding from here for decades ahead.
Q: To your mind what have been the big trends that have shaped 2024 and that will continue to drive momentum and deal activity in 2025?
Daniel: One of the areas that we’ve been very excited about is we’ve always tracked the consumer movement over period of time and we feel there’s a lot of activity still to be seen in the Bharat side of things, which is tier-II plus India. We’ve done a lot of work around that. The other area where a lot of activity is – still early days is AI. AI startups from India, for India and for the globe, that’s another sector. The third being manufacturing and B2B tech companies that make this more efficient—Zetwerk, Infra.Market and BlackBuck which went public as well—all these are going after the B2B opportunities. So these are some of the areas where we think there’s a lot more to be done from an Indian perspective.
Q: Let’s pick up on the consumer bet that you spoke of. And I’ll ask you this in the context of Accel’s big exit from Flipkart Walmart and the possibility now of Flipkart finally IPOing. What you make of this space? The lines between e-commerce and quick commerce now fast blurring in India, we’ve seen the kind of deal activity in the quick commerce space with the companies like Zepto etc raising over a billion dollars just in 2024. How are you reading now, the next wave as far as this sector is concerned?
Daniel: The Indian consumer now is well trained to order and expects a lot of convenience in 10 minutes as well. The lines are blurring. When e-commerce started, just getting things at home and getting it in the prescribed time in a couple of days was a big deal. But now everything you want in 10 minutes, be it electronics, be it any category you take, across various categories, people want it faster and faster. So that’s a trend. It’s, a balancing act. How do you do that while not stocking up too many things? That’s the fine line. The e-commerce is known for long tail, so you can’t have long tail as well as quick delivery. So that’s the balance that needs to be done by the companies.
Q: Let’s talk about the kind of investments that you made through 2024 and what we should now expect in 2025. I’m just taking a look at your portfolio, you have invested in more than 30 companies totalling over $140 million just in 2024. These include both new investments as well as follow-on’s. Take me through the bets that you have played in 2024, the investment thesis that will continue to drive your cheques and where they head in 2025?
Arora: We have three core pillars at Elevation. And then there’s a fourth, which we have started building this year. So the first three core pillars are consumer, which includes consumer tech platforms like Swiggy, but it also includes consumer brands, where we’ve been early investors in companies like Country Delight, Bliss Club, etc. Second is fintech, financial services. Third is SaaS plus AI, India building for the world. And the fourth which we have very actively started building out this year is healthcare. So these four will continue to be big focus areas for us going into the next year as well.
If we contrast Indian market with let’s say rest of the world where 80%-90% of venture capital today is going into AI, our view is in India where we are as an economy, there is a lot of headroom across all of these categories. And therefore, in India, both investment and returns will be much more broad based and secular and not really limited to AI.
We also believe role of AI in India will be a lot more cross cutting. So it can play a role in education, it can play a role in healthcare, it can play a role in financial services. And therefore, there will be multiple avenues versus only SaaS and B2B software for the world, which of course will remain a focus area as well.
So this year we ended up investing in 30 companies pretty much equally split between the first three and a little bit in healthcare. And my view is next year will be very similar for us as well.
Watch accompanying video for entire discussion.
