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 round by new investors General Atlantic and Facebook, along with existing investors, in Edtech startup Unacademy.
Fintech companies were the most attractive sector for VC investments during Q1'20, attracting 19 investments worth $380 million. The largest fintech investment during the period was a $84 million investment by A91 Partners, Faering Capital and TVS Capital in Fairfax-promoted digital insurance company Digit. The second largest investment was a $74 million round led by Ribbit Capital and Coatue Management in payments enabler BhartPE.
Healthcare and Healthtech companies took the second spot attracting 17 investments worth $282 million. Apart from Curefit, healthcare analytics company Innovacer raised $70 million from Steadview Capital, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, WestBridge, Mubadala and M12 (Microsofts venture fund).
"While VC investors in India seemed to have shrugged off the chilly winds emerging from the US (owing to the WeWork IPO fiasco and Uber stock price slide of late 2019), the Coronavirus contagion infected the ecosystem sharply starting mid-March," remarked Arun Natarajan, Founder, Venture Intelligence. "We can expect VC investors to be highly selective when it comes to making new investments in the months ahead and to be focused more on helping existing portfolio companies survive the downturn," 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.