Gujarat's high profile GIFT city 'fails to attract' funds, India's FinTech investment dips

By Rajiv Shah
While the Narendra Modi government may have gone out of the way to promote the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), sought to be developed as India’s formidable financial technology hub off the state capital Gandhinagar, just 20 km from Ahmedabad, a recent report, prepared by Tracxn Technologies suggests that neither of the two cities figure in the list of top FinTech funding receiving centres.
Results of city-wise trends on funding raised in first quarter of 2024, released by Tracxn, claiming to be a leading market intelligence platform, showo that Bengaluru topped with $247 million and 44% of all funding received, followed by Mumbai ($194 million or 35%), Hyderabad ($75.0 million or 13%), Gurgaon ($19.7 million or 3%), and Surat – the only Gujarat city to figure in Tracxn’s list of cities -- ($5.0 million or 1%).
Offering a comparison of the first quarter of 2024 with the quarterly performance of since Q2 of 2022, the report also indicates that the FinTech startup ecosystem has failed to catch up with the high investment trend witnessed in 2022. Thus, the Q1 2024 result worked out by Tracxn shows that the FinTech sector received a total investment of $550.8 million as against a whopping $1.3 billion in Q1 of 2023.

The trend suggests a sharp downfall over the period for which data has been released: Thus, the Q4 of 2023 received $346.7 million as against $537.4 million in Q4 of 2022; Q3 of 2023 received $476.6 million as against $973.4 million in Q3 of 2022; and Q2 of 2023 received $138.5 million as against $1.6 billion in Q2 of 2022.

Yet, ironically, the report seeks to heap praise the Indian economy, which it says “showed a strong performance in the previous quarter with a growth of 8.4%.” Agreeing that the “this number is expected to decline to 5.9% in Q1 2024 as per government sources”, it insists, “The Government of India has always been focused on promoting the tech ecosystem in the country.”
The declining trend in the funding of the FinTech startup ecosystem has come despite “the announcement of the Startup India Initiative in 2016”, which came up with “multiple schemes and initiatives have been introduced to boost the growth of India’s startup ecosystem”, to quote from the report. Thus, “Around $12 billion was allocated in the Interim Budget for 2024 for providing interest-free loans for 50 years to promote R&D in the private sector in the country.”

The report quotes the IMF to say that India is “expected to become the third-largest economy in the world by 2027 with a GDP of over $5 trillion”, and “with a large consumer base comprising the world’s largest young population and rising urban incomes, India is set to see good growth in the coming years.”

It adds, “FinTech has consistently been one of the top funded sectors in the country. Increasing smartphone penetration, the push towards a cashless economy, and other favourable regulatory policies have helped the sector receive consistent investor interest.”

Making a comparison of funding in Q1 of 2024 and Q4 of 2023 instead of Q1 of 2023, the report says, “Banking Tech, the third-highest funded sector, received funding of $85.8 million in Q1 2024, which is a growth of 187% compared to the $29.9 million in funding witnessed in Q4 2023, benefiting substantially from record-breaking UPI transactions and digital banking’s widespread adoption due to rising internet and mobile device penetration in cities and rural areas.”

However, this comparison, which many would consider incomparable (as the compared periods do not match), also shows that, to quote from the report, “Q1 2024 witnessed a significant 75% drop in seed-stage funding, which was at $9.9 million compared to $39.2 million in the previous quarter. Early-stage funding saw a 35% drop from $227 million raised in Q4 2023 to $147 million in Q1 2024. Only late-stage funding rounds witnessed a phenomenal rise of 392% to $394 million, compared to $80.1 million in Q4 2023.”

Comments

Dr (Col) Amitav Banerjee said…

All that glitters is not gold. Regrettably, glitter is valued more by most people today!

May 04, 2024

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Transgender Bill testimony of Govt of India's ‘contempt’ for marginalized community

Counterview Desk India’s civil society network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)* has said that the controversial transgender Bill, passed in the Rajya Sabha on November 26, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, is a reflection on the way the Government of India looks at the marginalized community with utter contempt.

Search This Blog