Subhechcha Ganguly 
A severe cash shortage in the Indian startup sector has resulted from VCs beginning to pull their money out of startups due to ongoing geopolitical unrest in the world. In an effort to lower operating expenses, many have begun to lay off employees. According to a recent PwC India report, between April and June 2022, investment decreased by as much as 40% to $6.8 billion. Raj A. Kapoor, the founder of the India Blockchain Alliance, a think tank, told FE Digital Currency that rising Indian interest rates and the dollar’s appreciation against the Indian rupee are additional factors.
Although there are still nearly six months left in the year and 17 startups have already achieved unicorn status. At the start of the year, the startup ecosystem was looking promising, corona cases were declining, and nations were opening their borders, but a sudden conflict between Russia and Ukraine shocked the entire world. In Q2CY22, only 4 startups were able to raise capital and achieve unicorn status. In this past quarter, there were fewer new unicorns, mirroring a global trend. “The ecosystem will need about 12 to 15 months to adjust to the current situation. The various macro-economic indices show a protracted “crypto winter” and a veritable slow recovery, according to Kapoor.
Investors are still thinking about the Paytm case. Paytm’s issue price was 2150 on November 8, 2021, but it currently trades for just 697. For VCs, the sharp decline in value is raising a warning sign. There are approximately 1200 unicorns in existence. About 108 are in India. The SaaS industry is where the majority of them work, followed by Fintech. According to the report, upGrad, Zepto, CoinDCX, and Turtlemint were among the four businesses in Mumbai that each raised more than $100 million. An online crypto tax solution called Catax- Simple Crypto Taxes was founded by Gaurav Mehta. “Due to current federal policy, market liquidity has significantly decreased, which has caused a temporary suspension in funding,” Mehta said.
According to the most recent OECD report, the economy will grow by 6.9% in FY 2022–2023 and 6.2% in FY 2023–2024. Once things return to normal on a global scale, the investors will inevitably return. A lot of businesses are currently struggling to survive because of the cash crunch. Few businesses are thought to have sufficient financial resources to withstand the general market. Seven organisations in the NCR raised more than $100 million each, including Robotics, Absolute Foods, Delhivery, Stashfin, Rario, Gray Orange Fashinza, and PhysicsWallah.
