Venture Intelligence, which tracks PE and venture capital (VC) investments, has revealed the main PE deals in India in 2018.
Private equity (PE) investments in India have reached $33 billion in 2018 across 720 transactions as compared with $24.3 billion across 734 deals in 2017.
There were 81 PE investments worth $100 million or more, accounting for 77 percent of the total investment value during the year against 47 such transactions in 2017. Of these, 40 were larger than $200 million each — accounting for 60 percent of the total value, compared to 30 such investments in the year-ago period.
The Walmart-Flipkart deal re-energised investors’ appetite for mega bets in Indian Internet and mobile companies. This has helped offset the slowdown in investments in sectors such as financial services, manufacturing and infrastructure, said Arun Natarajan, founder of Venture Intelligence.
Led by $1-billion investment in Swiggy (from South Africa-based Naspers and others) and Oyo (led by SoftBank), IT & ITeS companies accounted for 32 percent of the PE investment pie in 2018 by attracting $10.6 billion across 383 deals.
Food delivery company Swiggy received a $100-million investment led by Naspers, followed by $210-million raise (co-led by Naspers and DST Global), and rounded off with a $1-billion investment (led by Naspers and Tencent).
Hotel chain Oyo raised $800 million, with an additional commitment for $200 million, led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Paytm raised $445 million from SoftBank and Alibaba for its e-commerce business, Paytm Mall and $356 million from Berkshire Hathaway at the parent company One 97 Communications.
Other large-ticket IT & ITeS investments in 2018 included $300 million attracted by online payment gateway service BillDesk from Temasek and others; $236 million raised by online insurance broker PolicyBazaar led by SoftBank and the $410 million raised by Swiggy’s competitor Zomato.
Payments-enabler Pine Labs, event ticketing service Bookmyshow, social app ShareChat, music service Gaana.com, and fantasy gaming startup Dream11 have attracted $100 million or more during the year.
