Venture Capital firms made 76 investments worth $392 million in Indian companies during the three months ending September 2016. The investment activity in Q3’16 is 50% lower compared to the same period in 2015 (which witnessed 153 investments worth $657 million), according to analysis by Venture Intelligence. The activity level was also 22% lower compared to the immediate previous quarter (which witnessed 98 deals worth $292 million).
The latest data takes the VC investments in nine months of 2016 to 290 deals (worth $1 Billion) down 26% compared to 396 deals (worth $1.6 Billion) in the same period 2015.
The larger sized VC investments during Q3’16 were SME lender Lendingkart raising a $20 million Series B round led by new investor Bertelsmann India followed by the $17 million Series B investment in hotel aggregator Treebo Hotels (also led by Bertelsmann India with participation from existing investor SAIF and Matrix Partners) and enterprise software firm Innovacer’s $15.6 million Series A round from WestBridge. (Note: As VC type investments cap out at $20 million per round under Venture Intelligence definitions, follow on investments raised by companies like Hike, Druva, Byjus Classes etc. are not included in this analysis.)
Information Technology and IT-Enabled Services (IT & ITES) companies, at 52 deals worth $240 million, attracted 68% of the VC investments (61% in value terms). Healthcare & Life Sciences companies followed a distant second attracting 7 investments worth $63 million. IT & ITES investments during the latest quarter were however down from the 104 deals recorded in Q3 2016.
Bangalore continued to be the top destination for venture capital investments in Q3’16 grabbing 34% of the investments (by volume or number of deals), followed by NCR Region which grabbed 25%. Mumbai-based companies came third with a 23% share.