From the evident IPO wave to several startups shutting down, the Indian startup ecosystem saw several milestones while facing some challenges along the way in the year 2025. However, investor interest patterns continued to remain unchanged throughout the year.

Although Indian startup funding declined 8% YoY to $11 Bn across 936 deals over the past year, as per Inc42’s “Annual Indian Startup Trends Report, 2025”, fintech and ecommerce sectors continued to remain on top of investors priority lists.

While the fintech sector bagged $2.5 Bn across 120 deals this year, ecommerce managed to be on the top in terms of deal count of 206, raising a total of $1.7 Bn in 2025.

It must be noted that fintech and ecommerce continue to convert scale into unicorn outcomes most efficiently, dominating the current unicorn cohort.

India is home to 126 unicorns till date, out of which fintech segment account for 26 unicorns and ecommerce segment for 28 such companies.

While these segments commanded a third of the overall capital influx in the world’s third largest ecosystem over the past year, a diversification in preference becomes more evident when we take a glance at sectoral funding beyond the top two segments. Crucially, deeptech emerging as the third most funded startup segment this year emerged as a key silver lining in the Indian startup funding trends this year,

Deeptech Becomes The Third Most Funding Startup Sector Of 2025

Deeptech, which ranked much lower in terms of deal activity last year, emerged as one of the most active sectors in 2025, clocking 87 funding deals during the year. That said, the surge came off a relatively small base. Despite the higher number of transactions, deeptech startups raised about $500 Mn in total funding — significantly lower than the capital attracted by the two leading sectors in 2025.

This trend can largely be........

© Inc42