The Venture Intelligence Blog

Press Release Venture Capital* investors invested $1.74 Billion (across 126 deals) in Indian Startups during the quarter ended March 2020, according to data from  Venture Intelligence , a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and their valuations. The Q1'20 investments were 22% lower (in value terms) compared to the $2.22 Billion (across 196 transactions) during the same period last year and 7.5% lower compared to the immediate previous quarter (which had witnessed $1.88 Billion being invested across 176 transactions). Investment volume (or number of investments) has trended down even sharper: 36% compared to Q1'19 and 40% compared to the previous quarter. (*Venture Capital is defined as Seed to Series F investments in companies less than 10 years old.) The largest VC-type investment announced during Q1’20 was the $114 million investment by Temasek in fitness company Curefit . The second largest investment was the $110 million r...

Press Release Private Equity-Venture Capital (PE-VC) firms invested $5.9 Billion (across 164 deals) during the quarter ended March 2020 - 36% lower than the $9.2 Billion (across 249 transactions) during the same period last year, according to data from  Venture Intelligence , a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and their valuations. The Q1'20 investments were also 37% lower compared to the immediate previous quarter (which had witnessed $9.4 Billion being invested across 227 transactions). (Note: These figures include Venture Capital investments, but exclude PE investments in Real Estate). The latest quarter witnessed 14 PE-VC investments worth $100 million or more, down from the 20 such transactions in the same period last year. The largest PE-VC investment announced during Q1’20 was the $567 million takeover of power generation company  RattanIndia Power by Goldman Sachs and Varde Partners. The second largest investment was Sof...

OUR SUPPORT The recent outbreak of COVID-19 is having a devasting impact on our clients’ businesses, operations, workforce and morale. From ‘growth’, ‘business plans’, ‘targets’, ‘recruitment’, the discussions have shifted to ‘conservation’, ‘force majeure’, ‘employee wages’, ‘patience’, ‘resilience’ and ‘preservation’ and unfortunately, this pandemic is far from over.  The times are tough and we, at LexCounsel are here to support you with your queries on force majeure, suspension/termination of contracts, wage reduction, lay-offs, enforcement and frustration of contracts, continuity of compliances, breach of obligations, failure to meet payment deadlines, risk assessment or any other contractual/legal issues that you may be facing in your business. Please feel free to reach out to us should you require any assistance and we would be happy to help. If you have questions or would like additional information on the material shared above, please contact the authors:...

FORCE MAJEURE AND CORONAVIRUS: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Part 1: Force Majeure and Suspension/Termination of Contracts Coronavirus (COVID-19) is turning out to be a twin fold pandemic – that started with affecting public health and soon spread throughout the economy. Sudden global shutdown and travel restrictions have brought the economy to a screeching halt, before most of us could even comprehend the real impact. Many businesses are still at a loss and are only doing a guesswork regarding the magnitude of potential losses and recalibration needed for the businesses to survive this time, and remain viable. Resultantly, certain harsh realities stare at us, and certain brutal questions are to be answered. With specific reference to Indian laws, we have attempted to answer some of these questions which businesses are asking concerning the possibility to suspend, extend or cancel their contractual obligations and their ability to reduce workforce and other recurring costs ...

CONVERTIBLE NOTE: INVESTMENT VENTURE Authors : Madhavan Srivatsan, Aiyush Gupta and Khizer A. Qureshi 1.               Preface With the term ‘start-up’, the term ‘investment’ immediately comes in one’s mind and in the present context, there are various modes of investment in a start-up. Generally, when we talk about “investing” or “investments”, we exclude “debt” from it and focus on “equity” or “equity instruments”. In a very generic understanding, “equity” or “equity instruments” are those instruments which provides equity ownership to the investor either at the time of investment or after a specified period of time. However, in order to issue such instruments, one of the pre-requisites is “valuation” of the company. Generally, a start-up in its initial stages of operations is not able to arrive at its valuation, i.e. not able to value its equity, thus, the only option left for such start-up as a sour...

LIQUIDATED DAMAGES CANNOT TRIGGER INSOLVENCY PROCEEDINGS Judgment :  Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited vs Nitash Co-generation Private Limited Forum : National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench (“NCLT”). Act/Law : The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“Code”). Ratio : Claim for “Liquidated Damages” cannot trigger insolvency proceedings, unless adjudicated upon by a court of law. Proceedings under the Code are not for ascertaining or crystallizing the quantum of damages. Factual Matrix: Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (“Gujrat Urja/Petitioner”)  and  Nitash Co-generation Private Limited (“Nitash/Corporate Debtor”)  entered into a power purchase agreement (“Agreement”) in terms of which Nitash was to arrange for inter connection facilities and supply electricity/power to Gujrat Urja. The  Scheduled Commercial Operation Date (“SCOD”) was agreed to be upon conclusion of 48 months from the date of execution of the Agreement i.e. 06.06....