Venture capital investments in India's start-ups nearly halved to $1.5 billion in fourth-quarter 2015
The recent pullout by ICICI Venture and Citigroup Venture from a three-year-old drug discovery partnership with Dr Reddy's Laboratories points to angel investors' growing aversion to risk in pharma and biotech firms, say experts.
On October 27, the Reserve Bank of India had allowed start-ups to borrow up to $3 million or around Rs 20 crore a year either in rupees or any convertible foreign currency.
The RBI is of the view that it cannot carry out satisfactory due diligence for granting registration because the funding is from a jurisdiction that has been identified by FATF as having weak measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
VCs also do not want to under-finance companies and are ensuring that the current capital infusion takes them through at least 18-24 months, which is the expected time when the outside fundraising environment starts to recover, says Alok Mittal.
'The quality of a leader should be such that even if the leader is not there, the institution carries on.'
Indian start-ups raised issues, such as blockages in international wire transfers, disruptions due to threshold limits on withdrawals, lack of communication from US agencies, and the need for preferential access to credit, in a meeting with the government over the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, held a virtual meeting with over 450 members from start-ups, venture capitalists, and investors who have been directly affected by the closure of SVB. He assured them that the IT ministry would put together a list of suggestions and give it to the finance minister on behalf of start-ups.
The RBI panel has also recommended a government-sponsored 'fund of funds' of Rs 10,000 crore to support the venture capital and private equity firms investing in the MSME sector.
IT body Nasscom has helped four start-ups raise funding of Rs 40 lakh as part of its programme to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful businesses.
Seed and early-stage start-ups are high-risk businesses, rarely have collateral and only 1 in 10 of them makes it to becoming a viable company.
Experts argue that the top two players in each category will receive funding sooner or later, but for laggards, the market is still challenging
The Indian economy has witnessed the creation of 28 unicorns, or startups valued over $1 billion, this year on the back of a series of reforms unleashed by the government, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. Addressing a virtual conference organised by the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA), the minister said the Indian economy has witnessed a spur of unprecedented growth in the form of startups in the last two decades. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recognised more than 56,630 startups across districts throughout India, IVCA said in a statement quoting the finance minister.
For the first time in 21 years, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will revise norms for investment portfolios of commercial banks to reflect changes in global standards on valuation and measurement, and progress in the domestic market. This could pave the way for banks to transition to the new accounting standards (Ind-AS). The outstanding investment portfolio of commercial banks was at Rs 45.84 trillion as of November 19 this year.
There were fewer Series-B deals this year versus last, but more money was raised
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday accused the opposition Congress of harassing and insulting the Other Backward Classes during its rule at the Centre, and asserted that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that gave the first OBC prime minister to the country in the form of Narendra Modi.
Renuka Ramnath is credited with raising the India Advantage Fund Series II, the country's largest private equity fund till date with a corpus of $810 million.
Amphibious drones for maritime inspection... devices that extract pure oxygen from water for patients in need... self-balancing electric bikes...
rediffGURU Chandu Nair advises entrepreneurs and enterprises about how to create and build their business.
Venture capitalists (VCs) invested around $928 million (around Rs 3,700 crore) in 80 India-based firms during 2007 -- a 166 per cent increase over the $349 million invested in 36 deals in 2006 --, according to the latest quarterly India Venture Capital report published by Dow Jones VentureSource.
Tactical investors should have an investment horizon of around six months to one year, long-term investors should stick around for 10 years or more.
Shravin Mittal's venture capital firm, Unbound Advisors, has made investments worth over $500 million so far
Byju's plans to raise funds at a lower valuation of $7-8 billion as the embattled edtech major looks to shore up its financials with adequate liquidity, a senior company executive said on Tuesday. Banking on overall "improved performance", Think and Learn, the parent of Byju's, is hopeful of a higher valuation ahead of its rights issue being planned in February to raise funds. Byju's India chief financial officer Nitin Golani said the company is in need of funds and plans to raise it at a lower valuation to make the offer lucrative for investors as well as ensure adequate liquidity support for the edtech firm.
With 16 start-ups gaining unicorn status in 2021, India's tally has touched the 50 mark. The newest entrant to this list include Pune-based MindTickle, which is close to finalising a $100-million funding round from Softbank's Vision Fund 2, taking the company's valuation to $1.1 billion.
Billionaire and Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra along with top Silicon Valley investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan are backing space tech start-up Agnikul as part of a new funding round. Chennai-based Agnikul said, on Thursday, that it has raised $11 million in Series A funding round led by Mayfield India. It is the largest funding round for a private Indian space technology company in the country. Existing investors pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and Artha Venture Fund also invested in this round.
FirstCry is omni-channel player with presence across desktop, mobile and offline routes offering baby and maternity products in India.
'India's fundamentals are a lot better (than those of other emerging market economies).' 'India will suffer (witness a fall in its stock market) what I call the second order effect.' 'And the second order will happen when these funds (belonging to macro and hedge fund investors and which have leveraged Japanese yen-carry trades), because they lose money elsewhere as lot of their positions were financed by borrowing Japanese yen, will have to book profits in investment destinations where they are making money, including in markets like India.' 'They (these investors) will have to effectively sell in countries like India and which is the consequence (the crash in equity markets) that Indian markets might see.'
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
The country's two venture capital firms, Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Technology Ventures and Nexus India Capital, have been named in the Red Herring Top 100 Global Venture Capitals.
Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) with a lock-in period performed better than the ones that allow investors to withdraw capital at any time. Close-ended schemes had a median return of 5.62 per cent in December, according to data from industry tracker PMSBazaar. The median returns for open-ended schemes were 3.91 per cent
Unlike many peers in the VC space, LSE grad Juneja doesn't have an entrepreneurial background but is said to be strong in finance skills
While industry is upbeat, start-ups in the space sector are finding it difficult to cater to the demand due to a lack of funding, issues related to policy like foreign funding, intellectual property, etc, and a lack of support in testing.
PEs and VCs are taking a closer look at their bouquet of investments. Leading voices in the sector are categorical that cash-burn rates -- that's blowing up equity to acquire market share -- as a business model can't continue to be the polestar.
The Tata Sons' chairman emeritus has been aggressively investing in start-ups, ranging from e-commerce firms to cab aggregators
The collection of mostly small and medium sized businesses is a hotchpotch of ventures and include design schools, schools, villas for hire in Goa and a country club in Gurgaon.
Texas Pacific Group, the global private-equity fund, which manages around $20 billion, has named former Intel Capital managing director Varun Kapur to lead its investments in India effective this week.
The Qatar Investment Authority deal follows Byju's raising money from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which was also the first direct investment by the Canadian pension fund in an Indian start-up. In March, Byju's had raised $540 million at a valuation on $5.4 billion, making it the most-valued ed-tech company in the world.
Food delivery major Swiggy has received approval from its shareholders for a $1.25 billion initial public offering (IPO), according to filings made with the Registrar of Companies sourced by Tofler. The Bengaluru-based firm plans to raise as much as Rs 3,750 crore (around $450 million) via a fresh issue and up to Rs 6,664 crore (around $800 million) through an offer-for-sale (OFS) component, the filings stated.
The BSA Gold Star is launched....Ola Enters e-motorbikes Biz... Bajaj, TVS To Enter e2Ws Market...
The lock-in requirement has been reduced from three years to one year for angel funds and their minimum investment threshold has been slashed from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 25 lakh.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances