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 SoftBank Vision Fund's $507 million investment in Oyo as part of the budget hotel aggregator's ongoing $2 Billion round.
IT & ITeS companies came in first attracting $1.8 Billion across 86 transactions. The SoftBank-Oyo deal was followed by food delivery apps Zomato ($150 million from China-based Alibaba) and Swiggy ($113 million in a round led by South Africa's Naspers).
The larger ticket sized Energy sector deals saw $1.6 Billion being invested across 6 investments during Q1'20. Apart from the RattanIndia deal, Singapore-based Temasek and Sweden-based EQT Group set up a $500 million India-focused renewable energy platform, O2 Power. The third largest Energy deal during Q1'20 was Actis' $415 million acquisition of solar energy assets from Acme Cleantech Solutions.
"The Coronavirus-related lockdowns and related stock market mayhem brought new PE-VC investment activity to a virtual standstill towards the end of the quarter," noted Arun Natarajan, Founder, Venture Intelligence. "Until there is better clarity on the still unfolding health crisis front, most investors are likely to focus their energies on existing portfolio companies and be very selective in making new investments," he added.
Venture Intelligence is India's longest serving provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India.