Funding grinds to a near halt in the week that Binny Bansal resigned

Hello, hello, hello, This week has probably been one of the most controversial in the history of the Indian startup ecosystem. Binny Bansal's departure from Flipkart marked the end of an era. The questions are flying thick and fast. The dust is far from settled. After all, Flipkart was synonymous with Indian startups. Apart from the many firsts to its credit, Flipkart has also been one of the most well-funded companies, raising $2.5 billion from SoftBank in a single round last year. In fact, 2017 was the year of super-giant funding rounds. And we haven't had too many in the second half of 208, which explains some of the slowdown in October ([check out our monthly report here.]( This week, however, was a damp squib. [Just $8.95 million was raised across nine deals.]( The big deal this time was [Perpule raising $4.7 million]( from Prime and others. On the other side of the globe, Indian-origin founders raked in some moolah for their startups too: Silicon Valley-based [Automation Anywhere raised another mega round of $300 million]( from Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund. And the Santa Clara-based cybersecurity startup Netskope raised $169 million from the likes of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Accel, Geodesic Capital, Iconiq Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Social Capital as well as Base Partners. (PS: the round also gave it an admission to the Unicorn club). [Click here]( if you would like to receive our funding newsletter every Saturday and alerts on funding news as it happens. (And tell your friends too!) If you've been reading us for a while, tell us what else you'd like read about in the funding newsletter. Send us pats on the back (or raps on the knuckle) at: newsletter@yourstory.com. -- [Click Here]( to unsubscribe from this newsletter.