India’s tech scene saw a huge influx of cash on Monday as Japanese investment firm SoftBank announced it would pour over $800 million into deals for e-commerce platform Snapdeal and on-demand taxi service Olacabs.

This may be a new endeavor for SoftBank, as it seeks out the Alibaba of the Indian market, but the massive funding follows a pattern of mega-rounds that consistently skew venture investment totals out of India.


Last quarter’s funding totals reached a record high for India-based startups, with $1.6 billion invested in 70 venture deals. Yet $1 billion of this total represents Flipkart’s latest tranche of funding.

With a combined eight late-stage rounds announced in the past two years, investments for Flipkart and Snapdeal alone comprise nearly $2.8 billion of a total $5.3 billion raised by India-based startups since 2013.

Now Olacabs joins the group as the country’s third most-funded startup.

Classified ads website Quikr India, fashion e-commerce hub Myntra (bought by Flipkart in May), and marketing startup Jasper follow behind – but at a distance, having yet to secure comparable funding amounts.

Check out Graph Insights and the CrunchBase Investor Leaderboard to discover some of your own connections.

Image via Flickr user Simply CVR.

  • Originally published October 29, 2014, updated September 25, 2024