The Venture Intelligence Blog

Ernst & Young retains Most Active Transaction Advisor status inclusive of due diligence, other services Unitus Capital and BMR Advisors made their entry into the top of the Venture Intelligence League Tables for the Most Active Transaction Advisors for Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions deals respectively in calendar 2013. The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on volume of PE and M&A transactions (combined with credits based on fulfilment of criteria) advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. Private Equity Unitus Capital made its entry into the top of the Venture Intelligence League Table for Most Active Transaction Advisor (Private Equity) for calendar 2013 acting as financial advisor to 13 qualifying PE investments during the year (and notching up 50 points). Among the transactions advised by Unitus were the $57 million investment by Citi, Morga...

Nexus Venture Partners, India’s leading venture capital firm, announced investment in Uniken (www.uniken.com), a market leader in creating ‘Secure Digital Enterprises’. “Uniken is disrupting the digital security space with its REL-ID platform that provides military grade security with rich digital experience. We are very impressed with the Uniken team’s passion and speed of execution and excited about this partnership.” said Sandeep Singhal, Co-founder, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners who will be joining Uniken’s board.  Uniken, is a proven security and innovation partner to leading banks and financial institutions, and currently has over a million users on its flagship REL-ID platform. REL-ID, a next generation secure digital platform developed at the Uniken Innovation Center, is a holistic plug and play solution which secures the trusted relationships of an enterprise and enables the delivery of a rich, ubiquitous and secure digital experience to its customers...

IT & Healthcare deals dominate while Education, Financial Services and Cleantech cos drop from favor Venture Capital firms invested about $805 million over 206 deals in India during the twelve months ended December 2013, according to analysis by Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and valuations. The VC investment activity was about 18% lower compared to 2012 which had witnessed 252 transactions worth $898 million. Top Investments The largest VC investments of 2013 were the $20 million rounds raised by restaurant chain Barbeque Nation (from CX Partners) and online taxi booking service Olacabs (from Matrix Partners India and existing investor Tiger Global). Investments by Industry With 130 investments worth about $404 million, the Information Technology and IT-Enabled Services (IT & ITES) industry retained its status as the favorite among VC investors during 2013 accounting for 63% of the investment activity (50...

Ramesh Srivats of digital branding firm TenTenTen provided some hilarious ones in Businessworld : All births will be announced on Facebook, and all deaths on Twitter. Google Plus will look on enviously. Flipkart will get a few hundred million dollars from VCs in March, July, and maybe November" The unkindest cut however was reserved for the future of the newspaper: The newspaper, in the meanwhile, will become a useful archive of all the stuff you read the previous day. It will totally integrate with your digestive system — wrapper for samosas, napkin to wipe mouth, fan to keep you cool while digesting, and companion while ejecting said samosas. Ouch! Ouch! and Ouch! PS: Obviously, the article was published well before the sad passing away of Sunanda Tharoor .  Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view...

Homeveda, a health video content site focusing on natural health and wellness, has raised funding from Blume Ventures. The company provides short 2 to 3 minute do-it-yourself (DIY) videos on its website, YouTube and Blinkx, as well as via telecom operators Airtel and Vodafone. They are also available on DTH, with Tata Sky. Homeveda will use the funding to scale up operations as well as develop mobile apps.  The company recently launched on Roku as a standalone channel, and claims to have done over 150,000 views in the first month. Homeveda was launched in May 2012, by Harsh Rohatgi, Vinay Mishra and Hitesh Bhagia, and claims over 200,000 subscribers and close to 30 Million views on YouTube. Source: MediaNama.com Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Diges...

Mswipe, a Mumbai-based company which provides point of sale (POS) solutions which enable merchants to accept card payments using their phones, has raised its second round of funding of INR 29.57 crore ($4.77M) for 22.82% stake from Matrix Partners and Axis Bank reveal regulatory filings.   From the Venture Intelligence PE Deal database: In Jan 2013 Matrix Partners and Axis Bank along with other Angel Investors had invested INR 10.38 Cr for a 19.12% stake.  Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

The Indian Angel Network has invested in Bangalore-based integrated chip solutions provider xSi Semiconductors . Lip Bu Tan, the chairman of global venture capital firm, Walden International, has also participated in the round of funding. IAN member Hemant Kanakia will join the board of the company.  Founded in 2012, the start-up's core focus area is in power management, primarily in LED drivers and voltage regulators.  Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Darius Pandole, Partner at PE Firm New Silk Route, has an article in Business Standard on the topic. Extracts: The +ves: Secondly, it can assist in raising capital based on the consolidated financial strength of its subsidiaries, which otherwise could be difficult for each individual subsidiary company. Flexibility to reorganize and structure finances is also available for individual businesses. Another key advantage of a holding company structure is that while it allows investment in multiple businesses under one parent company, it also ringfences each business from the risks of the other, by preventing the business performance of one business from affecting the performance and valuation of another.For investors, this offers the option to gain an exposure to any preferred business along with the flexibility to structure the investment (as debt, equity etc.) to meet their investment objectives. The -ves: As per the regulatory framework in India, holding companie...

Overall PE investments plunge to lowest levels since 2009 Private Equity firms invested $7.5 billion (over 384 deals) in India during the 12 months ending December 2013, according to analysis by Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and valuations. The 2013 PE investment numbers, down over 18.5% compared to the $9.2 billion (across 484 deals) invested in 2012, represent the lowest levels witnessed in the last four years in both value and volume terms. Led by KKR’s $460 million investment in Alliance Tire Group, the four largest investments during 2013 involved global PE investors buying majority stakes from existing investors. The next three largest transactions were all in the IT Outsourcing sector: the $443 million buyout of publicly listed Hexaware Technologies by Baring Asia; the $420 million buyout of GlobalLogic by Apax Partners; and the $270 million buyout of CSS Group by Partners Group. The 18 investments of over $100 ...