India, July 4 -- Indian startup funding was muted in the first half of 2026, declining 9% YoY to $5.2 Bn raised between January and June. There was a slight 7% uptick in the total number of deals to 501, as per Inc42's Indian Tech Startup Funding Report, H1 2026 report.

Even as overall funding trends remained rather muted, investor strategies continued to evolve, with many moving focus to ventures building frontier technologies like AI, robotics and deeptech. For instance, total investment in AI startups soared over 4X YoY to $676 Mn across 57 deal;s.

Meanwhile, advanced hardware and technology saw funding rise 17% to $365 Mn on the back of a record 66 deals.

At the same time, institutional capital continued to gravitate towards seed a...