August saw a couple of $100 million-plus deals, including River Mobility and Navi, pushing India’s startup funding closer to the $1 billion mark. Notably, early-stage deals accounted for around 42% of the month’s funding, led by rounds in Airbound, Centricity, and InRisk Labs. Despite mixed market sentiment around startup IPOs, Shiprocket, Milky Mist, and Leap made strong market debuts at a premium. The month also saw a couple of layoffs, while one startup shut down operations. According to data compiled byEntrackr, Indian startups raised approximately $954 million across 88 deals in August. The total included 13 growth and late-stage deals worth $555 million and 75 early-stage deals worth $400 million. Of the 88 deals, eight were disclosed without funding amounts during the month. Month-on-month, startup funding jumped 44.3% to $955 million in August from$662 million in July, making it the third-highest monthly total of 2026. Year-on-year, funding remained largely stable at $955 million in August 2026 versus $961 million in August 2025, while the number of deals declined from 100 to 88. Growth and late-stage funding in August was led by EV startup River Mobility, which raised $120 million in a Series C round.NaviandYulufollowed with $100 million and $93 million, respectively, while AI startup Sarvam AI secured $74 million. Other notable deals included Third Wave Coffee, Leap India, Matter, BlissClub, Matel, and BGauss, with investments spread across mobility, fintech, AI, F&B, supply chain, EV, e-commerce, and manufacturing. Early-stage funding in August was led by aviation startupAirbound, which raised $37 million, followed by wealthtech platformCentricitywith $30 million and fintech startup InRisk Labs with $27 million. Other notable deals included CtrlS, Runable, Nexedge Capital, NeoGeo, Rezolv, InstaAstro, and HomeRun, with investments spread across aviation, fintech, data centres, AI, deeptech, spiritual tech, and quick commerce. Mergers and acquisitions remained active in August, with deals spread across healthtech, fintech, edtech, AI and spacetech.Templeacquired London-based longevity medicine practice Longevous, while Healthifymergedwith Berry Street. Other deals included GalaxEye’s acquisition of StarOps, Imarticus Learning’s acquisition of BELLS Institute, Mintoak’s acquisition of ICC Loyalty and ET Now’s acquisition of OpiGo. Bengaluru continued to dominate startup funding in August, accounting for 47 deals worth $657.65 million, or nearly 69% of the total funding. Delhi-NCR followed with $127.92 million across 20 deals, while Mumbai secured $83.35 million across eight deals. Hyderabad and Pune accounted for a smaller share, with $27.5 million and $22.6 million, respectively. EV led startup funding in August with$256.14 million across six deals, making up26.9% of the total funding. Fintech followed with $200.9 million across eight deals, while AI secured $134.4 million across 13 deals. E-commerce raised $48.23 million across 12 deals
