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The roller coaster ride that was 2016 is at it's end, and thankfully so. Affecting everything in its way, the startup universe didn’t go untouched.

From Brexit to the Syrian crisis, it claimed it's victims and people are absolutely done. The startup universe too got struck by its wave, yet it was not without it's success stories.

Though more than 200 startups were forced to close shut due to various reasons and many came under the inescapable grip of acquisition, which we’ll get to later in the article, many did manage to bag substantial funding making for a success story.

Data consolidated by Lawyered.in. All figures are approximate and have been collected by information present on the Internet.

The year 2016 saw a total amount of $3.9 Billion invested into Indian Startups, that is almost a 50% drop compared to 2015, which saw a total investment of $7.6 Billion. Bengaluru topped the charts the number of startups that were funded.

Bengaluru also topped the chart when it came to the amount that was raised.

The starting of 2016 saw the maximum number of investments going through and slowly declining towards the end of the year.

January also saw an approximate funding of $700 Million dollars.

Read on for a concise account of the booming successes and the fatal failures of the year.

Startups that raised considerable funding

Easing off on the e-commerce and hyperlocal wave, the investors gave a chance to ventures in the Edtech business and the results were quite noteworthy.

While an overall downer, the year couldn’t stop these ventures from getting their hands in the candy jar for a handful.

Ibibo group

This venture managed to raise funds as high as $250 million from investors like leading internet firms like Naspers and China based, Tencent. Despite such a success earlier in the year, it was forced to accept defeat later in the year ending in its acquisition. With this, it was the only venture to taste both success and failure in the same year.

Snapdeal

Raising the second highest funding, Snapdeal managed to grab a hefty sum of $200 million this year. These investments were led by Canadian pension fund – Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and followed by the likes of Iron pillar, Brother Fortune Apparel and Bennett Coleman & Co.
This managed to raise its valuation to around $7 Billion.

MakeMyTrip

MakeMyTrip managed to score an astonishing sum of $180 million in January this year.
The sponsor for this sum was China based travel service provider, Ctrip.com.

Hike

This startup managed to bag an incredible sum of $175 million in its Series D round, raising its valuation to $1.4 Billion. With this round it has managed to raise a total funding of $250 Million till now.

The investors responsible for this were Tencent Holdings, Foxcomm Technology Group, Tiger Global, Bharti and Softbank.

OYO

Raising sums of $100Million and $62 Million in two rounds, in April and August respectively, OYO managed to bag a total sum of $162Million. The main investors in these rounds include names like Softbank, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, existing investor Venture Nursery and some more.

The startup also managed to hit the 100-city mark this year.

Big Basket

The next big grosser on the list is the ecommerce venture, BigBasket. It managed to fill its basket with a whopping $150 Million with the help of a long list of investors. Some of these include UAE-based Abraaj Group, International Finance Corp., Sands Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Advisors and many more.

CarTrade

This auto classifieds venture managed to raise a sum of $145 Million, making it the only venture in this field to make it to the top ten this year.
This round of funding was led by Temasek Holdings and others like US-based investment firm March Capital and existing investor Warburg Pincus.

BYJU’S

This EdTech venture got away with a sum of over $120 Million over three rounds of funding, raising $75Million in March, $50Million in September and an undisclosed amount in December 2016.

The main backers here were Sequoia India, Belgium based investment firm Sofina, International Financial Corporation (IFC), Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and more.

Shopclues

E-commerce startup Shopclues managed to hit the billion dollar mark in 2016 at $1.1Billion by raising funding worth $100Million.
This round of funding was backed by investors like GIC, Tiger Global Management and Nexus Venture Partners.

Fractal Analytics

The last entry in the top ten and another entry in the $100Million group was data analytic startup Fractal Analytics. The investment received by them was mostly led by Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional Berhad.
This also managed to raise the value of the venture to about $300 Million.

While these made the top ten, others like BookMyShow, Rivigo and InCred also made it big in their funding rounds.

For more information on the big winners of 2016, you can refer to this all-inclusive review here.

Startups that shut down in 2016

While the above may have been the silver lining, the storm clouds of 2016 rained fatal thunder on many forcing a total 212 shut downs in the year. This was 50% higher than the toll of 2015, according to data analytics firm Tracxn.

Many big names who managed to raise considerable funding before and many that were backed by big firms were driven into the ground, with many reasons to blame.

Majority of the shutdowns were startups that were founded in the year 2015.

As we all know by now, the Hyperlocal and Food-Tech sector took the biggest hits.

The $46 Million dollar raised by PepperTap made Hyperlocal the biggest loser for the year 2016.

PepperTap

Founded in 2014, PepperTap was considered the third biggest grocery delivery startup after Grofers and Big Basket. After managing to raise considerable funding over four rounds amounting to over $51million, the founders announced the shutdown of the venture in April.

This made for the biggest casualty of 2016 of a venture backed by big names in the VC universe like Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners.

The shutdown is alleged to be caused by the inability to sustain operation due to lack of funds caused by their faulty management. But PepperTap wasn’t the only loser, other grocery delivery ventures that shut shop were LocalBanya and GrocShop.

AskMe

All hell broke loose for a promising hyperlocal online classified venture AskMe when their parent investor, Malaysia-based Astro Holdings backed out. The latter even had to file a petition in Delhi High Court to get the venture to close shop.

After starting operation in 2010, they had managed to raise great amount of funding mostly from Astro Holdings amounting to $300million. With many reasons to blame for the exit, the major ones can be narrowed down to mis-management of venture funds and lack of accountability.

TinyOwl

The online food-ordering venture was forced to lay off employees and cut down operation when it ran into trouble early in 2016. They shut down operation in 11 cities, continuing just in Mumbai in May 2016.

Despite having raised funds over 4 rounds from investors like Sequoia Capital, Nexus Ventures and Matrix Venture Partners; they were forced to shut shop in 2016.

Among the many reasons for this failure, the main have been attributed to the problems of delivery costs, negative margins, giving away too much discount and unreliable food quality and services from restaurants.

But, this wasn’t the only venture in this business to shut down. ZuperMeal was another promising venture that was forced to shut down despite raising $2million in seed funding and being advertised by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor.

Delhi based Delivree King, Zeppery, BiteClub and iTiffin also made it to the list of food-ordering app losers of 2016.

FranklyMe

This 2014 video micro-blogging venture that aimed to connect celebrities with fans, aimed to become India’s first video only social network. They manage to raise funds to the amount of $600k in seed funds from Matrix partners and more from undisclosed sources later.

The platform even gained popularity when the likes of Arvind Kejriwal, Javed Akhtar and other used their platform to express themselves via videos. But the magic soon fizzled out as it failed to build traction and the venture was forced to shut down in February 2016 despite desperate pivoting.

Fashionara

The fluctuation and the competitive atmosphere of the online fashion niche claimed another victim in Bangalore-based, Fashionara. Started in 2012 by former bigwigs of Reliance Trends and Times Internet, this venture boasted of much promise like its contenders Freecultr and Zovi.

But, this $4million grabbing venture, backed by Helion Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners, was eventually forced to shut down in May 2016 due to lack of funds.

AUTOnCAB

Aiming to become the poor man’s Uber, the auto-rickshaw hailing venture, AUTOnCAB failed to keep above ground and was lead to an early death. Failing to raise funds, this puny startup didn’t stand a chance against well-funded rivals like Uber and Ola.

Purple Squirrel

This EdTech financial startup offered to bridge between students and industry leaders for industrial exposure and training. Founded in Mumbai in 2013, it managed to raise an amount of $2million from investors like Matrix Partners and India Quotient.

Sadly, they were forced to quit due to bleak business and increasing cash burn.

Intelligent Interfaces

In shocking news this promising new startup declared its exit just a few months after raising funding.

Backed by YouWeCan Ventures, Sachin and Binny Bansal, this 2015 startup was started to help the Indian governance by providing intelligent data aggregation and visualization solutions.

Klozee

Following in line with international ventures like Poshmark and Rent the Runway in US and Secoo in China, this online apparel rental platform started operation in 2015.

But, 2016 saw the shutdown of this new-age venture due to failure to overpower challenges in the market. It had earlier raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Tracxn Labs and a few others.

While these and many more saw fatal ends, many were forced to shut down few of their divisions while managing to somehow retain operation as a whole. While Flipkart shut down its grocery delivery division, Nearby in October, Ola was forced to drop the idea of bike as taxi due to legal issues.

Mergers and acquisitions

As with all the other sectors, the year had its highlights in the M&A sector too. With somewhere around 150 of these, startups couldn’t escape getting involved with one another.

Even big names made it to the list and some of them make a very interesting read.

Runnr and TinyOwl

June saw the coming together of the two, in order to take on competition from Zomato and Swiggy. The deal was pushed forward by common investors Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners.

This ended with Runnr launching a fully integrated app with new and advanced features.

Myntra bags Jabong

July saw the fashion arm of the biggest Indian e-commerce venture, Myntra acquire Rocket Internet backed – Jabong. Flipkart owned Myntra beat the likes of Alibaba, Amazon. Snapdeal, Aditya Birla Group and Future Group to acquire this prized possession.

The news was made public by way of a tweet.

PayUMoney and CitrusPay

The biggest deal in Indian fintech niche was concluded in September 2016, when Citrus Pay was acquired by Naspers-backed PayU. What made it so big was the fact that a whopping sum of $150million was involved in the transaction.

MakeMyTrip and Ibibo merger

News of another deal brewing came close to the PayU-CitrusPay deal where MakeMyTrip and Ibibo Group came together. This was done to tackle rivals like Yatra, Ctrip, Expedia.com, etc.

The deal was speculated to bring the combined valuation of the two to about $1.8Billion.

Thus, many big players came together for a combined effort at a common goal.

The list of such deals goes and you can read more about these above and the rest here.