Fund managers are becoming more wary of investing in startups due to the examination of corporate governance and ethical concerns, especially among unicorns. The year 2023 saw a decline in startup investment throughout the country, with Pune seeing a significant decline of about 65–70%, according to statistics from the startup data analytics platform TheKredible. Numerous business insiders have concluded that this trend calls for a change in direction.
Fund managers are becoming more wary of investing in startups due to the examination of corporate governance and ethical concerns, especially among unicorns. Their current practice is to prioritize client base, profitability, and other measures above financial commitments.
These changes led Pune’s startup sector to record 35 transactions in 2023, raising $359.94 million in the capital. This is a considerable fall from the previous year, when 51 transactions were inked, and $1.06 billion in capital was secured.
Conclusion
Currently ranked second in India for finance, behind Karnataka, Maharashtra has a digital startup ecosystem with over $30 billion in total funding to date. The research states that in 2023, the Maharashtra tech startup ecosystem received a total of $2.1 billion in investment. This is a significant decrease of almost 76% when compared to the funds obtained in 2021 and a steep dip of 62.5% from the $5.6 billion collected in 2022. In specifics, seed-stage investments dropped by 73% from $404 million in 2022 to $108 million in 2023.
