Private Equity

PE Fund Investments

PE-VC Investments in 2021 hit all time high of $63 Billion

 

Private Equity - Venture Capital (PE-VC) firms invested a record $63 Billion (across 1,202 deals) in Indian companies during 2021, registering a 57% rise over the $39.9 Billion (across 913 deals) invested in the previous year, reports Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions, and their valuations. (Note: These figures include Venture Capital type investments, but exclude PE investments in Real Estate). India minted a total of 44 "Unicorn" companies (VC-funded startups valued at $1 Billion or more) in 2021, 15 of them during Q4'21. The $23.4 Billion invested into the Information Technology sector dominated list of Unicorns accounted for more than 37% of the overall value of PE-VC investments in 2021. The October-December 2021 quarter (Q4'21) saw over $5 Billion (across 25 deals) being invested in such companies. The year 2021 witnessed eight investments worth $1 Billion or more, led by Flipkart's $3.6 Billion Pre-IPO round (which marked the re-entry of SoftBank Corp to E-commerce giant's list of shareholders, following its exit to Walmart in 2018). The next three largest PE investments - after Flipkart's mega fund raise - went to IT Services companies: Carlyle Group's acquisition of Baring Private Equity Asia's (BPEA) stake in Hexaware Technologies in a $3 Billion deal; the $2.8 Billion bid by Blackstone to buy out a 75% stake in publicly listed MphasiS; and Advent International's acquisition of Encora (from fellow US-headquartered PE firm Warburg Pincus) for $1.5 Billion. Edtech "decacorn" Byju's $1.4 Billion fundraise led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers) was the fifth largest PE-VC investment during 2021. Sequoia Capital India was the most active investor in 2021, crossing a century in terms of bets (105 transactions across 91 companies), followed by global investor Tiger Global (which was part of one out of every three $100M+ deals seen during the year) with 60 investments (across 47 companies).