YS Research finds that while fintech and e-commerce continue to lead, quite a few other sectors are making their mark when it comes to raising funding.

If 2015 was the year of the rise and fall of foodtech, 2016 was the year when fintech made its way into the spotlight and, especially post-demonetisation, has stayed put, well into 2017. And as data from YS Research shows, in the last six months, startups in the financial technology space have even managed to surpass even the most glamorous of all sectors, e-commerce, in terms of funding raised.

Led by Paytm’s $1.4 billion in funding from SoftBank in May, fintech raised $1.8 billion, followed by e-commerce with $1.5 billion (though $1.4 billion of that went to market leader Flipkart alone). In fact, Paytm Mall’s $200 million in funding from SAIF Partners and Alibaba was the second biggest round for an e-commerce company. This is in stark contrast to the prior-year period when e-commerce earned $4.8 billion in funding while fintech wrapped up only $2.6 billion.

(Note: We have not included US-based Amazon’s recent $2 billion investment into its Indian subsidiary, Amazon India. Fashion portals like Wooplr, Seenit, Summer Label, Zapyle, and StalkBuyLove are part of the e-commerce list. Together fashion companies have raised more than $50 million in H1 2017, but even including that, the gap between fintech and e-commerce remains wide.)

Angel investor and start up mentor Mohandas Pai says: “Sectors like e-commerce consume a lot of capital. They have to lose money to dominate the market, so they need capital in hundreds of millions. But the number of deals in e-commerce is fewer, as (it is) with larger-sized deals. Money involved in Series A, B, and C will depend on the maturity of the startup.”

Surprise entrant

A distant third in line is cleantech, which raked in almost $700 million, the bulk of which went to wind energy company ReNew Power which raised about $690 million across three rounds. igrenEnergi Inc and ION Energy raised undisclosed amounts in their seed rounds.

The sector, however, seems to have great potential, with India and China having beaten the US in attracting investment into the sector, according to a recent EY report. Oil and gas conglomerate Shell has also announced that its VC arm will now be investing in the sector.

Transportation and tourism are fourth and fifth in line, respectively. Having raised more than $400 million, cab aggregator Ola led the list of transportation companies that raised funding, while MakeMyTrip was at the top in the tourism sector, with $330 million.

Fall from 2016

At number seven, the logistics sector got together just…