India's venture total is a flow, and a rupee registry is a stock

The record

Bain & Company published its India Venture Capital Report 2024, produced in collaboration with the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association, on 14 March 2024. Covering 2023, it states that Indian venture capital funding fell from $25.7 billion in 2022 to $9.6 billion in 2023, deal volume fell from 1,611 to 880, average deal size fell from $16 million to $11 million, and mega-rounds fell from 48 to 15. Separately, India's securities regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, publishes quarterly statistics on Alternative Investment Funds. As of 31 March 2026, its Category I Venture Capital Fund line shows 64,134 crore rupees in cumulative commitments raised, 38,899 crore rupees in funds raised, and 34,125 crore rupees in investments made, all on a net basis since each fund's inception.

What the sources establish

Bain's figure is an annual flow: dollars deployed into Indian startups during a single calendar year, drawn from market-intelligence deal tracking. SEBI's figure is a cumulative regulatory stock: rupee amounts reported by funds formally registered under India's AIF regime, aggregated since each fund began, net of redemptions. Bain's number is not limited to SEBI-registered vehicles; capital routed through offshore funds or structures outside the AIF framework can appear in Bain's deal count without appearing in SEBI's registered-fund total, and the reverse is also possible.

Scope and revision

No conversion reconciles these two figures. One is a single year's flow in dollars; the other is a multi-year cumulative stock in rupees, reported only for funds inside a specific regulatory perimeter. Bain's report also distinguishes deal volume from average deal size, noting that small and medium deals under $50 million compressed by about 45 percent in 2023 while mega-rounds compressed by nearly 70 percent, a reminder that a single aggregate figure can obscure very different movements at different deal sizes within the same year.

The decision in front of you

An investor or founder assessing the size of India's venture market should first ask whether a quoted figure is an annual flow or a cumulative stock, and whether it is confined to SEBI-registered funds. Editorially, the two sources answer different questions: Bain's report is closer to what deal-level market sizing usually means, while SEBI's registry is closer to what an assessment of the formal, regulated fund industry's scale requires.

• Is the number a single year's investment flow or a cumulative total since inception?
• Is it denominated in dollars or rupees, and at what point in time?
• Does the figure include capital routed outside India's registered fund regime?

A consulting firm's annual deal survey and a regulator's cumulative fund registry describe the same country's venture activity from two structurally different vantage points, and neither can stand in for the other.