Early-stage funding cheque size goes up in 2024, says report

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Seed and pre-series A funding rounds in 2024 saw a rise in average cheque sizes, with more than 50 percent of early-stage deals falling in the $500,000 to $2 million range, venture debt firm InnoVen Capital’s Early-Stage Investment Insights Report released on May 16 has said.

Overall funding in early stages, however, declined slightly to $341 million from $378 million in 2023, while the valuations of the deals remained almost the same.

"Investors have entered 2025 with stronger conviction, clearer filters, and deeper engagement with future-facing sectors like Gen AI. At the same time, they are prioritising team quality and early revenue traction more than ever before," Tarana Lalwani, Partner at InnoVen Capital India, said.

The number of deals stood at 219, with consumer/ D2C brands, deeptech and B2B platforms attracting the most investments. Nearly 39 percent of the capital came from domestic LPs, the report said.

Around 50 percent of the investors surveyed said they were already deploying funds in artificial intelligence (AI) and Gen AI startups, while 70 percent were tracking the changing contours of this boom.

According to the report, 74 percent of investors see secondary sales as the most likely path to exit, ahead of IPOs and merger and acquisition. The report also said 50 percent of investors cited IPO mispricing as the key reason for post-listing underperformances of several top startups.