Press Release: Private Equity – Venture Capital (PE-VC) firms investments in India fell by 29% in 2022 compared to the record highs of 2021. PE-VC firms invested $46 Billion (across 1,261 deals) in Indian companies in 2022, compared to $65 Billion (across 1,362 deals) in the previous year, reports  Venture Intelligence , a research service focused on private company financials, transactions, and their valuations. (Note: These figures include Venture Capital type investments, but exclude PE investments in Real Estate). India minted a total of 21 ” Unicorn”  companies (VC-funded startups valued at $1 Billion or more) in 2022, 18 of them during the first six months of 2022 and less than half the 44 Unicorns minted in 2021. In fact, the final quarter of 2022 did not see any new unicorns being created. SaaS companies accounted for 29% of all the new unicorns in 2022,

Forbes India has an article on the series of events leading to the recent controversial exit of Arvind Rao, Co-founder & CEO of listed Mobile VAS firm OnMobile. On November 23, 2010, Arvind Rao, the 53-year-old co-founder and CEO of OnMobile, bought approximately 6 lakh shares of his company from the open market, representing a little over 1 percent of the company’s total shares….At Rs 277 a share, he had to pony up nearly Rs 16.5 crore to acquire them….So he went ahead and borrowed money to buy the shares, thinking nothing of the interest it entailed or the fact that he’d need to put up nearly half his existing shareholding as collateral…OnMobile’s shares continued to fall from those levels, while Rao’s interest payments ballooned. …Motivated by OnMobile’s growth all these years, he had never paid much attention to his salary, most of which went towards the monthly rental on his sea-facing apartment in Mumbai and his BMW 7-Series, both paid directly by the company. He req

In a recent interview to Venture Intelligence, Shailendra Singh discussed some of the firm’s newer investments in the early stage segment including in the online payments space, the progress at a few existing portfolio companies and the active role the firm is playing in helping its portfolio companies scale and succeed in India and globally. Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Singh was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in New York and before that, an entrepreneur in the digital media industry. Venture Intelligence: How does Sequoia go about identifying potential early stage investments in India? Is there anything different you are doing today than, say, a couple of years back? Shailendra Singh: There is a lot more focus on technology investing and early stage investing. In general, as you might remember a few years ago, we were doing primarily growth investing but in the past 18-odd months, we have had a very strong focus on early stage and that’s continuing. In terms

Blackstone, Temasek, Motilall Oswal and Stakeboat Capital were awarded as among the leading Private Equity investors in India for 2022 as part of Venture Intelligence APEX‘23 Private Equity & Venture Capital awards event in Mumbai.  The Venture Intelligence “Awards for Private Equity Excellence” (APEX) is dedicated to celebrating the best that the Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital industry has to offer.  The APEX Awardees are selected based on both Self Nomination by the participating PE-VC firms as well as “crowd sourced” nominations and voting from the Limited Partner, PE-VC and advisory communities. (The main criteria are Exit Track Record, New Fund Raises & Follow-on Funding Rounds for Portfolio Companies) Temasek received the Private Equity Fund of the Year  2022 Award on the back of strong part exits during from  year from Intas Pharma (with an over 7.5x return); Devyani International (with ~4.8x) and Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals (with ~3.5x).

Aeka Advisors and Ambit claim the No.2 & 3 slot Avendus topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisor to Private Equity Transactions for Q1 2023 advising 5 deals worth $808 million. Aeka Advisors stood second having advised 3 deals worth $228 million. Ambit followed with 4 deals worth $160 million. Ernst & Young ($114 million across 4 deals) and o3 Capital ($80 million across 2 deals) completed the top five for Q1 2023. Avendus acted as advisor to ADIA’s $500 million investment in omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart . Aeka Advisors acted as advisor to Kreditbee’s $160 million fundraise from Advent International, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and existing investors. Ambit advised the $104 million fundraise of Freshtohome from Mount Judi Ventures, Iron Pillar, Amazon and others. The  Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on the value of PE