Delhi NCR Startups Raise USD 1.7 Bn in Q1 2026: Report

Delhi NCR’s technology ecosystem raised USD 1.7 billion across 110 funding rounds in the first quarter of 2026. While the total funding was lower than USD 1.9 billion recorded in the same period last year, the numbers reveal a shift rather than a slowdown. A small number of large deals dominated the quarter, with the top three transactions alone contributing USD 1.2 billion, leaving the remaining 107 deals to share just USD 500 million. This trend suggests that investors are increasingly focusing on fewer but larger and more selective bets.

A report by Tracxn Technologies Limited, a data and market trends tracker of startups, has revealed a structural change in the funding landscape across Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad. The report said deal activity fell from 153 deals in Q1 2025 to 110 in Q1 2026, but that the drop in overall funding was a comparatively smaller 11 percent. This is a sign that capital is being deployed more strategically, with bigger bets on high-confidence opportunities rather than scattering capital widely.

The quarter was largely defined by three major transactions in various stages. Nxtra has raised USD 710 million in a private equity round, while Inox Clean Energy closed its Series D funding at USD 344 million and Wingify raised USD 150 million in a Series A round. These deals represented nearly 71 percent of the total funding in the quarter. Late-stage investments alone accounted for USD 1.2 billion while early-stage and seed-stage funding stood at USD 362 million and USD 147 million respectively, clearly indicating a skew towards mature companies.

Enterprise infrastructure was the leading sector, with a total of USD 869.1 million, of which a single data centre investment contributed significantly. Environment technology followed with USD 434 million, propelled by renewable energy initiatives, while enterprise applications attracted USD 243 million. Combined, these sectors accounted for more than USD 1.5 billion of the overall funding, indicating a shift in investor interest to companies driven by infrastructure and sustainability, rather than consumer trends alone.

Inflection Point Ventures led seed-stage activity, while firms like Peak XV Partners, Saama and Bain Capital Ventures were present in early-stage deals. In the late stage, investors like Orbimed, Blume Ventures and Swedfund were important.

On the exits front, the quarter saw nine acquisitions, matching the number recorded a year earlier, but the IPO market remained relatively quiet with only one listing. The most notable exit was Brahma’s acquisition by Polymarket for USD 1.2 billion, significantly larger than other deals, including CarInfo’s acquisition by Cars24 for USD 44.4 million. Several other acquisitions, though undisclosed in value, pointed to increasing consolidation within the ecosystem and rising interest from global buyers.

Gurugram led the funding activity geographically with a 52 percent share at USD 876 million, followed by Noida at 27 percent (USD 453 million) and Delhi at 20 percent (USD 341 million). Faridabad and Ghaziabad saw limited activity, but the three cities together accounted for almost all of the funding in the region.

Overall, the data reflects a maturing market where capital is not declining but becoming more concentrated, with investors prioritising scale, stability, and long-term infrastructure-driven growth.