American venture capital firm Sequoia Capital exclusively led venture capital investments in India in 2022. It completed 71 deals till November. However, it recorded 30% fewer deals than the previous year. Sequoia Capital struck 103 deals last year. This data is by the market analytics platform Venture Intelligence.

There was a decline in lending activity by venture capital firms in 2022. Venture Capital firms faced a funding crunch in 2022. A total of 1075 deals were closed by venture capital firms in India in 2022 till November. Last year, 1212 deals were closed by venture firms.

2022 was a rough year for venture capital firms. The conditions of the market were challenging. However, Sequoia capital managed to maintain its lead position in recent years by focusing on early-stage ventures and growth deals in India.

Sequoia Capital and Accel lead investments

Along with early-stage ventures, its accelerator program, the Surge was also one of the reasons for the lead position of Sequoia’s capital.

Surge is an accelerator program that funds rookie startups. 

Sequoia Capital takes the lead

As mentioned above, 71 deals were done by Sequoia capital till Nov 2022. Some of those investments are Climes(Climate focussed firm), Rigi.club(influence platform), Hubble(fintech startup) and Apollo.io. 

Sequoia Capital is known for its investments. It has maintained its lead position in recent years. The firm was also the leading investor in 2019 and 2020. In 2019 and 2020, the firm completed 87 and 89 deals, respectively. 

Sequoia Capital has been investing in India since 2006. It has also raised a record $2.85 billion across three funds to help startups in India and Southeast Asia. The Venture Capital firm also indicated that it has sufficient funds for the next few years.

Accel ranks 2nd in the list

Venture Capital firm Accel comes on the list after Sequoia capital. It has maintained its position as the 2nd most active VC firm in India. The Venture capital firm has completed 54 deals in 2022 till November. However, Accel also did 19% fewer deals as compared to last year. A $650M corpus fund was also announced by this Venture Capital firm in March 2022. These funds will focus on India and South East Asia.

Pune-based Better Capital ranks third with 52 deals this year. Tiger Global made 50 investments in 2022.

As per reports, deals will increase in 2023 but not like in 2021.

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Apurv Panigrahi