A Two-Year Decline:
According to data presented by Stocklytics.com, in 2023, they raised $565.2 billion, which is $40 billion or 7% less than compared to 2022. Furthermore, when compared to 2021, the downturn becomes more pronounced, with a staggering $118.4 billion decrease or a 17% drop over the two-year period.

Traditional vs. Digital Money:

Traditional ways of getting money, like venture capital (VC) services, saw a downturn. In 2021, companies got $618.2 billion from VC services, but in 2023, it dropped to under $500 billion. On the other hand, digital ways of raising money, like crowdfunding and marketplace lending, grew from $65.4 billion to $66.3 billion during this time.

Smaller Deals:

Companies used to get big amounts of money for each deal, with an average of over $14.7 million in 2021. But in 2023, this fell by almost 25% to $11.1 million per deal. This means companies had a harder time getting large amounts of money for their projects.

Regional Challenges:

The United States, having the biggest capital raising market globally, faced a big drop of 20%, getting $299.5 billion in 2023. China also had challenges, with a 12% drop from $148.6 billion to $133.2 billion during the same time.

The full story and statistics can be found here: https://stocklytics.com/content/companies-across-the-globe-raised-565-2b-in-2023-40b-less-than-a-year-before/

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Mumbai/Denver based CometChat, a CpaaS startup has raised $1.6 million in a Seed round from Colorado-based Range Ventures, NY-based Silicon Badia, and India based iSeed Ventures.

CometChat, which was incorporated in the US, by Anuj Garg and Anant Garg in 2019, works with top global enterprises by providing plug n play communication products to improve brands’ reach.

As a product tech company, it designs critical functions like chat, video, and live event capabilities within websites and apps to help enterprises who are looking to boost user engagement accelerate their go to market time. Because of their product and solutions, enterprises save hundreds of developer hours and the associated costs.

Anuj Garg, Co-founder & CEO, CometChat, says, “CometChat has been working in the space of designing effective chat and video solutions for our customers. Today, we have built a strong base in the US and India, and with the backing of well known VCs both in the US and India, we believe our growth rate will accelerate and help us hit the next set of milestones quicker than before.”

Founded by twin brothers Anant Garg and Anuj Garg, CometChat products enable beginner developers and business owners to add a full-fledged messaging and communication platform within their website and apps in minutes using a plug and play interface. It also enables intermediate and expert developers to easily customize and scale their communication requirements using their SDKs and APIs.

Utsav Somani, Founder, iSeed Ventures, said, “I first came across CometChat when a customer of theirs posted a great review about them. Then from the minute, I saw their meteoric rise in metrics to Anuj and Anant’s vision on how text, voice, and video will play a vital part in bringing intimacy to experiences online, I was excited to invest fairly quickly.”

The company chose to remain bootstrapped until last year when they became the first and only Indian startup to be selected for the Techstars Boulder Accelerator Program and received funding as part of the program. The funds raised in the Seed round will be used to scale up sales and marketing functions in the US and India.

This capital will help CometChat, a B2D (business to developer) company, fuel growth by entering new markets with their Developer-First marketing approach and make significant investments towards product development.

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South Korea’s KB Financial Group’s venture capital unit KB Investment Co., has invested $3 million in the Indian logistics management startup FarEye’s Series D financing round.

According to sources, the Noida-based startup raised a total of $33 million at a valuation of about $95 million in its latest funding round led by Microsoft’s venture fund M12.

Other participants include Eight Roads Ventures, the venture capital arm of U.S. investment giant Fidelity International; Honeywell Ventures, the investment unit of U.S. conglomerate Honeywell; and Fundamentum, India’s growth-capital fund for mid-stage tech companies.

The seven-year-old startup uses a predictive algorithm platform to help businesses orchestrate, track, and optimize their logistics operation. Walmart, DHL, FedEx, and Domino’s are among its major clients.

The company as of now employs about 300 people, handling more than 10 million transactions a day. According to its website, it has clocked an annual recurring revenue of $10 million in the quarter ended December 2019, with a broad presence across India, Europe and the Middle East.

Investors see huge growth potential in FarEye, especially as the surge in online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic, increased the need for more advanced supply chain operations.

The industry estimates the software as a service (SaaS) market related to logistics to expand from $30 billion in 2019 to $75 billion by 2022. In particular, the last-mile delivery part of the market is expected to grow from $2 billion in 2019 to more than $5 billion by 2023.

“Our extensive global network has become a major driving force behind our global venture investment in the ‘untact’ economy. We will continue building trust with major venture capital firms by taking part in joint investment” a KB Investment official said.

‘Untact’ economy is a new word coined by Korea meaning non-face-to-face economic activities that take place mainly online.

KB Investment, through its 220 billion won ($184.6 million) KB Global Platform Fund and has continued to broaden its investment reach, most recently backing Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing giant Grab.

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The Series A-oriented fund, which aims to make 18 to 20 investments, aims to make the final close by the end of this year, according to a statement.

Stellaris was launched by Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal and, Rahul Chowdhri — all former Partners at Bangalore-based VC fund Helion Venture Partners.

It mainly looks to invest in startups solving India-specific problems, as well as global software products from India. The fund’s key investment areas are local language online services, technology-led financial inclusion, supply chain networks, vertical machine learning applications, and global SaaS businesses.

Stellaris has made two investments so far: B2B e-commerce marketplace Wydr and an undisclosed startup.

The company’s Limited Partners are financial institutions, corporates, entrepreneurs and family offices in the US, Europe and Asia.

Stellaris has offices in Bangalore and Delhi NCR.

Said Banglani: “We have assembled a strong syndicate of Limited Partners for our first fund. Indian tech companies are set to create US$500 billion of value over the next decade, and our fund gives its investors the opportunity to participate in this value creation.”

Stellaris has also created a network of more than 50 successful entrepreneurs and business professionals in India and abroad, who work closely with the partnership to help identify promising investments, advise the portfolio and selectively co-invest with the fund. The names include TaxiForSure Co-founders Aprameya R and Raghunandan G, Indify founder Alok Mittal, Capillary Technologies Founder Aneesh Reddy; as well as investors and business leaders like Kanwaljit Singh, Founder of Helion and Fireside Ventures, and Neeraj Agarwal, India Head of the Boston Consulting Group.

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