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PE investments in H1'21 rise 33% to $27 Billion

Press Release

Private Equity-Venture Capital (PE-VC) investments in India rose 33% during the first 6 months of 2021 to $27.1 Billion (across 442 deals) compared to $20.4 Billion (across 433 deals) during the same period last year, shows data from Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions, and their valuations. PE-VC investments during Q2'21, at $14.3 Billion across 215 deals, registered a 12% Q-o-Q increase (compared to the $12.8 Billion across 227 deals in Q1'21). The Q2'21 investment value also surpassed (by 2.4%) the Reliance Jio dominated Q2'20 (which saw $13.9 Billion being invested across 190 deals - of which, $9.8 Billion or 71% went into just Jio). Q2'21 witnessed 33 mega deals ($100M+ rounds) worth $11.5 Billion, compared to 12 such investments (topped by Jio) in the same period last year.

The first half of 2021 saw the creation of 16 Unicorns (VC-funded startups valued at $1 Billion or more), 11 of which were minted in the 2nd quarter. Overall, Unicorn Startups in India attracted close to $5.1 Billion worth of investments in Q2'21.



The $2.8 Billion bid by Blackstone to buy out a 75% stake in publicly listed IT & BPO Services firm MphasiS, accounted for 20% of PE-VC investment pie in Q2'21. The other top PE-VC deals of Q2'21 included the $900 million acquisition of another IT Services firm - Infogain - by Apax Partners and the $800 million investment in food delivery services Unicorn Swiggy (from Prosus Ventures QIA, Falcon Edge Capital, GIC, Accel and others). This was followed by KKR-led $625 million investment in cosmetics major Vini Cosmetics and social media platform Sharechat's $502 million fundraise (from Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global and India Quotient with participation from global social media giants Snap and Twitter).



"While April saw over $7 billion being invested on the back of mega deals in the tech sector, the intensive second wave of the pandemic saw the deal value in May dip to just $2.7 Billion," noted Arun Natarajan, Founder of Venture Intelligence. "It is good to see a quick resurgence in the pace of investments in June (which saw over $4.2 Billion being invested), post improvement in the Covid situation as well as relaxing of the lockdowns," he added.

By Industry

IT & ITeS companies accounted for $14.4 Billion of the total investment pie in H1'21, led by two mega IT Services buyouts in Q2'21: the Blackstone-Mphasis deal, followed by the 100% acquisition of Infogain by Apax Partners (which provided an exit to homegrown PE investor ChrysCapital). Swiggy and ShareChat  


The Healthcare & Life Sciences industry attracted about $2.25 Billion in H1'21 - a 48% spike compared to the $1.52 Billion invested in H1'20. The industry was led by the $398 million buyout of the animal health business Zydus AH, from listed pharma firm Cadila Healthcare, by a  Multiples PE-led consortium in May. This was followed by Goldman Sachs' $329 million investment in CRO firm Aragen Life Sciences and the $283 million investment in hospitals operator, Manipal Health Enterprises, by the Govt. of India promoted National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF). The latest quarter witnessed over 10 Life Sciences investments. Apart from the Zydus and Aragen, the sector saw two more $100 million+ investments - in  Morepan Labs and Encube Ethicals - during the period.

The BFSI industry saw $6.7 Billion worth of investments in H1'21, led by Piramal Group's $5.2 Billion take over of the distressed housing finance firm Dewan Housing Finance Corp Ltd (DHFL). Q2'21 witnessed four BFSI companies - from a range of sectors including Star Health Insurance, National Stock Exchange, Federal Bank and the SME focused Fintech startup OfBusiness - attract investments of over $100 million each.

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.

(Venture Intelligence Subscribers will be mailed detailed reports of the PE-VC action during Q2'21 in the next few days.)

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