Sluggishness in Early Stage however continues
Venture Capital investments* perked up in August to 34 investments worth as much as $440 million - making it the second highest month in 2017. These stats are comparable to those seen in August 2016 (37 deals worth $458 million) and 140% higher in terms of value compared to Jul'17. August also arrests the 2-month slide in deal activity which began in June. (* Seed to Series D round investments in companies less than 10 years old with value of up to $20 Million. The monthly stats also include investments in IT companies that less than 10 years old, with deal value above $20 million.)
August registered as many as 10 deals worth more than $10 million or more, with VC investors predominantly focused on Series B and beyond rounds.
The reported $100 million investment in B2B E-Commerce firm Just Buy Live,was followed by data protection software company Druva's strong $80 million round. Online lender Capital Float attracted $45 million, while Treebo Hotels checked in with $34 million. Healthcare firms found favour with bioinformatics company MedGenome attracting $30 million and fitness chain operator Curefit raising $25 million.
Seed Investors taking a Break?
August was not all good news, however. The slowdown in angel investments continued with the month registering just 19 investments - compared to 47 deals in the same period last year and 22 in July'17.
The downward trend was also noticeable in the Early Stage VC segment with a sequential drop in Seed and Series A investments.
Will the Mega Flipkart Deal Trickle Down?
The screamingly large headline in the VC ecosystem in August of course was SoftBank Vision Fund's mega investment (over $2 billion) in Flipkart - providing an exit route to the e-commerce poster child's early investor, Tiger Global. Whether this liquidity event will encourage Tiger Global - the bellwether VC investor in India during the first half of this decade - to invest more in India going forward could set the tone for the remainder of the year. For more perspective on Tiger's past and likely future investments, read the analysis here.
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