Venture capital (VC) investments in Indian startups plunged over 38 per cent in 2022 as economic uncertainty and market volatility affected fundraising and investment activities, GlobalData said on Tuesday. In a statement, GlobalData said an analysis of its financial deals database reveals that "a total of 1,726 VC funding deals worth $20.9 billion were announced in India in 2022 compared to 1,715 deals worth $33.8 billion in 2021." "The ongoing economic uncertainty and market volatility continue to affect the fundraising and investment activities in India and subsequently VC investment in the country startups suffered a massive year-on-year 38.2 per cent decline in value terms during 2022," the data and analytics company said.
BlueRun Ventures and Nokia Growth Partners, two venture capital firms supported by Nokia Corporation, hope to invest in one or two Indian start-up companies every year, senior executives said on Tuesday.
They are making switch to the high-growth alternative investments fund industry, reports Pavan Burugula.
Siddharth Roy Kapur's RKF aims to raise around $50 million by offering up to a 50 per cent stake in the company.
Smaller Singapore- and US-based venture capital funds, retail associations and trader bodies such as the CAIT and SJM are all planning to approach the government to put pressure on the commerce ministry.
In January, Visa's chief executive officer, Al Kelly, said during an earnings call that "there's been a burst of the balloon in valuations in the fintech world". Noting that the trend of lower valuations "is a helpful characteristic of the current environment", he added: "We will look for capabilities and management teams that will bring more value to Visa than we can bring ourselves." Data from KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H2'22 shows that global fintech investment - via mergers and acquisitions (M&As), private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms - at $164.1 billion in 2022, was down 31 per cent over the year before. Indian fintechs held up better during this timeframe, attracting $6 billion, or a fall of 24 per cent.
The fresh meat and seafood delivery startup Licious plans to set up 500 stores nationwide within the next five years as part of an omnichannel strategy. The aim is to attract new users in the offline channel and encourage them to transact online as well. The move would also help the company in its efforts to achieve profitability and go for an initial public offering (IPO) in the next 24 months, according to the sources.
'Indices will remain range bound in 2022 as earnings catch up with the current multiples.'
According to the author, these ideas will change the way entrepreneurs think and succeed in their ventures.
Ola Electric, the SoftBank-backed electric vehicle (EV) maker, is likely to pursue a valuation of approximately $4.5 billion in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), marking about 18 per cent decrease from its last funding round valuation of around $5.5 billion, according to industry sources. The Bhavish Aggarwal-founded firm aims to file for the IPO by next month, according to people familiar with the matter. "The strategy is to price the IPO attractively for investors, fostering long-term growth and wealth creation," said a source.
'It would be reasonable to assume that Modi 3.0 would be more focused on projects and schemes which do not require any legislative change or which have the support of its coalition partners,' asserts A K Bhattacharya.
So far, VCs used to fund start-ups which either had product prototypes ready or had some customers on board.
Austria-based manufacturer of branded circuit boards, Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG (AT&S) has acquired ECAD Technologies, a Bangalore-based IT company, for a total consideration of Rs 7.5 crore (Rs 75 million), it was announced on Friday.
'We look at the opportunities that are going to come in various fields in the next 5 to 10 years, do some research and come up with business plans.' 'Then, we go and seek out founders who will run the actual business.'
Investments by private equity and venture capital funds doubled to a record high of $9.5 billion in July mainly driven by higher investor interest in the e-commerce sector, a report said on Monday. Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investments stood at $4.1 billion in the year-ago period. The activity was higher by 77 per cent when compared to June's $5.4 billion, the report on monthly PE/VC investment activity by industry lobby IVCA and consultancy firm EY said.
Time has now come for a pathbreaking 'Entrepreneurship Bill' pleads venture capitalist Soumitra Sharma.
With $18.6 billion in investments, Bengaluru made it to the top-five leading VC funding hubs across the world in 2021 - following San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Greater Boston Region and London. However, it outstripped Beijing ($13.6 billion) and Shanghai ($13.4 billion). Global tech VC investment into start-ups hit a record level of $675 billion in 2021, doubling the previous all-time high of $340.6 billion in 2020, a report by London & Partners and dealroom.co.
The company, which claims to have an annual revenue rate of US$7 million and is targeting to touch US$35 million in 2022, will also be investing in creator growth and monetisation opportunities.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) on Thursday quashed a Sebi order that barred NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy from the securities market for two years in an insider trading case. However, the appellate tribunal partly set aside an order against Vikramaditya Chandra, the group's chief executive officer during the relevant period, and remitted the matter back to Sebi to decide the issue. It further said that trades executed by Chandra during PSI-3 (price-sensitive information) are required to be reconsidered, according to the order passed by SAT.
'Son believes India has a significant opportunity in chip design, especially in creating IP that will be uniquely Indian.'
Manipal Group chairman Ranjan Pai is in early discussions to invest in Byju's-owned Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL). According to sources in the know, Byju's founder and chief executive officer Byju Raveendran, who owns a 30 per cent stake in Aakash, is expected to partially offload his holding to Pai for $80-90 million (about Rs 650-740 crore). Raveendran may use the money to repay a large part of the Rs 800 crore loan that Byju's raised from US-based investment firm Davidson Kempner Capital Management in May, after facing a 'technical default', the sources said.
Even at early stage, start-ups are raising more money faster owing to the rise of a lot of specialised early-stage VCs and emergence of seed-stage programmes.
Alternative investment funds (AIFs) - pooled investment vehicles catering to high net worth individuals (HNIs) - saw a 30 per cent increase in investment commitments during financial year 2022-23 (FY23). At the end of March 2023, the total investment commitments raised stood at Rs 8.33 trillion, up Rs 1.92 trillion from Rs 6.41 trillion at the end of March 2022. A commitment is the money clients are willing to put into AIFs.
One year after the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority's (Irda) allowed insurance companies to invest in venture capital (VC) funds, no insurer has shown interest in funding VCs.
As a venture partner, DVP said that Neemuchwala would be bringing deep technology expertise and invaluable experience of building businesses.
The controlling shareholders of smaller and mid-sized companies are reducing their stakes at levels seldom seen since the 2008 global financial crisis. Over 20 per cent of companies listed on BSE MidCap and BSE SmallCap have seen a decline in promoter holdings for five consecutive quarters, reveals data from DSP Mutual Fund, shared with Business Standard. In the latest June quarter, the figure stood at 22.6 per cent.
Read this and rest assured you can be on your own against venture capitalists and angel investors
Generative artificial intelligence (AI), climate tech and fintech sectors will be the hot areas for venture capitalists and founders in the next year, according to the prediction by Prashanth Prakash, founding partner of the global venture capital firm Accel Partners in India and the chairperson of Karnataka Startup Vision Group. Prakash said that about $25 billion has been invested into building Gen AI globally. But a lot of that capital has not yet come to India, opening up huge opportunities for startups in the country.
UTI Venture Funds and TDA Capital Partners have invested $2.3 million for a minority stake in RevIT Systems Private Limited and its subsidiary, Sherpa Business Solutions, a healthcare and publishing BPO company, based in Chennai.
'What is Balaji without Ekta (Kapoor), what is Dharma without Karan (Johar?)'
The 'angel tax' provision in the Finance Bill will not impact startups in India, a senior government official said on Tuesday. Startups which are registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade do not come under the purview, Anurag Jain, the secretary in the department said while speaking at the IVCA Conclave. "Let me put one thing very clearly. It doesn't affect startups in the least," he said, addressing the audience at the event organized by the venture capital industry lobby grouping.
As funding from foreign private equity and venture capital firms is the lifeline for most online retailers, the restriction on foreign direct investment is threatening to block any fresh investment into the sector.
While Team Indus had backing from Nandan Nilekani, Ratan Tata and Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal, it could not even muster half of the Rs 4.5 billion it required for the mission to the moon.
Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) will acquire around 1 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the retail arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, by investing Rs 8,278 crore ($1 billion). A QIA's wholly-owned subsidiary will make the investment in India's largest retailer at a valuation of Rs 8.278 lakh crore ($100 billion). Updating about the development, Reliance Industries in a regulatory filing said: "QIA's investment will translate into a minority equity stake of 0.99 per cent in RRVL on a fully-diluted basis." RRVL is the holding company for all retail businesses of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).
While the fresh issue portion of IPOs has been going down over the years, this financial year has been abysmally low at only Rs 2,663 crore, 82 per cent lower compared to the last financial year.
3i, a private equity and venture capital firm, will invest $45.50 million in sports and media company Nimbus Communications Ltd.
The credit guarantee cover under the scheme would be both transaction-based (for single eligible borrowers) and umbrella-based (for a group of eligible borrowers).