The Venture Intelligence Blog

Indiagames founder Vishal Gondal has an interesting post on the topic: Being a VC in an emerging markets like India is like being a VIP. You are at a very high pay scale, constantly being pitched by smart entrepreneurs, called to give speeches at every major conference. At business plan events they are almost mobbed and receive endless amounts of emails, phone calls, SMS most of them trying to desperately convince them into liking them. They meet CEOs of top companies, are in influential company boards, and get an ego massage from everyone who meets them...Its but natural for any human who is living in an environment like this to develop a bit of an EGO. Its really complex dealing with such people and you too can easily get into the EGO massaging mode. ...VCs always tend to react to the current buzz. If the last big acquisition was in the cloud application space they would suddenly start looking at cloud investments. If a high profile investor or entrepreneur invests in a segment that...

Venture Intelligence recently spoke with Venetia Kontogouris, Managing Director of Trident Capital. The US-based VC firm has invested into six companies with significant operations in India including Elucido, Microland, MingleBox, Neilsoft, AirTight Networks and Outsource Partners International. (This interview first appeared in the Venture Intelligence India Venture Capital Report of Q1 2010) Venetia Kontogouris of Trident Capital Venture Intelligence: Is Trident Capital cutting its exposure to India? Venetia Kontogouris: The business environment is slowly getting better but it is still a challenge for young companies to generate revenues. As a result, most VCs are being more conservative. We are on hold until we get a better idea of the direction of the Indian markets and valuations. VI: In general, what sort of businesses are you looking at? VK: We look to invest in technology, Internet, software, business services and payments space over the next 6-12 months. VI: Which sectors...

Venture Intelligence recently spoke to Mintoo Bhandari who heads global PE firm Apollo's India subsidiary in Mumbai. Apollo recently consummated its first PE investment in India - a $100 million investment in DTH operator, DishTV. Prior to joining Apollo in the US (in 2006), Bhandari was Managing Director of India-focused private equity firm, The View Group. Interestingly, Apollo – when it comes to PE investments - has chosen to invest earlier in India than in China. (This interview was first published in the Jan-Mar 2010 issue of the Venture Intelligence India Roundup Private Equity report.) Venture Intelligence: Can you tell us how the DishTV investment came about and what attracted you to the company? Mintoo Bhandari: There were both macro and situation specific reasons why we found DishTV interesting. On the macro thesis: we believe India is perhaps the most attractive media market in the world today. India is a producer of significant unique content and there is voracious...

Private Equity firms invested about US$2,000 million across 56 deals during the quarter ended March 2010, according to a study by Venture Intelligence ( http://www.ventureintelligence.in ), a research service focused on Private Equity and M&A transaction activity in India. The amount invested during the latest quarter was the highest in the last six quarters. The figure was significantly higher than that during the same period last year (which witnessed $620 million being invested across 58 deals) and also the immediate previous quarter ($1,681million across 102 deals). The largest investment during the quarter was the $425 million investment into power generation firm Asian Genco by General Atlantic, Morgan Stanley, Norwest, Goldman Sachs and Everstone. Other top investments reported during Q1'10 included Quadrangle Capital Partners' $300 million investment into telecom tower infrastructure company TowerVision India; StanChart PE, KKR and New Silk Route's $217 million ...

Microfinance, Infrastructure Finance and service providers to financial services firms, are among the favourite sectors of PE & VC investors within the industry, a survey by research firm Venture Intelligence reveals. Private Equity and Venture Capital investors are viewing investments in BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) companies as an attractive “entry point” into the two key themes driving their investments in India: rising domestic consumer and infrastructure spending. PE/VC investors surveyed recently by Venture Intelligence, a leading research firm focused on Private Equity and M&A deal activity, selected Microfinance, Infrastructure Finance, service providers to financial services firms (like back-offices to mutual funds, etc.), Banks, Stock Exchanges and Insurance Distribution companies as their favorite sectors within the BFSI industry. The survey results are published in the in the newly released report from Venture Intelligence titled “Private Equity ...

Did you know that Micromax is the third-largest GSM mobile phone vendor in India with a 6% market share (after Nokia (62%) and Samsung (8%))? Neither did I. In fact, I had not heard of the company until it became the sponsor of the recent cricket series between India and South Africa. Forbes India has a interesting profile of Micromax, which recently raised a $45 million round of Private Equity funding. This “dual-SIM” feature is today present in 20 to 30 percent of all mobile handsets sold in India, estimate experts. Yet market leader Nokia does not have a single dual-SIM handset in its vast repertoire of phone models for India. And the company that made Raina’s Q3 — Micromax Mobiles — offers this feature on 22 out of the 26 phone models it sells in India. The Q3 itself, though fancy looking, costs only Rs. 3,700. Micromax is now India’s third-largest GSM mobile phone vendor with a market share of 6 percent after Nokia (62 percent) and Samsung (8 percent), according to research firm ...

Sample this from Sanjay Chandra, MD of real estate firm Unitech, in a Business Today article on his lessons from the 2008-09 crisis. ...the media really worsened the situation. The worst was when news began doing the rounds that we had defaulted on our payments to the Greater Noida Authority, even though its CEO went on television to say that we had not defaulted. ...The frustration with lenders was also huge because they were the same people who would come to you analysing your balance sheet, analysing your assets and lend you money. They came back to you after just three months and wanted to recall their money because the market perception had changed. And these were relationships which we had for years. We had a sanction of Rs 700 crore from a large public sector bank. The loan was very heavily collateralised, they were happy with the structure, but one board member objected saying that "if this comes into the papers tomorrow we will be in trouble". So, the approved loan ...