Ascent Capital all set to exit SemanticSpace Technologies

Ascent Capital, the Bangalore-based private equity fund with close to $600 million under management, is understood to be close to exiting its six-year-old investment - SemanticSpace Technologies, to another global private equity fund. As and when Ascent Capital exits the company, it will be its second handsome exit this year, having exited from Bangalore-based Strand Life Sciences to another global PE fund - Burrill & Company during February.

Ascent Capital (formerly UTI Ventures) had invested close to Rs 20 crore during 2006-07 and is expected to exit with close to Rs 90 crore during the fresh round of funding which SemanticSpace is raising. It is understood that fresh funding will be to the tune of close to Rs 150 crore. In addition to Ascent Capital, New Vernon was another PE fund in SemanticSpace Technologies.

This move to raise resources from PE investors comes after an attempt by Semantic Space to go public which did not fructify last year when it planned to raise close to Rs 150 crore. Founded in 1997, SemanticSpace serviced over 400 marquee customers and delivered over 1,000 projects to date.

SemanticSpace is comprised of three key business units - SST, Arsin and Prolifics - that respectively provide application services, independent verification and validation services, and systems integration solutions in the application infrastructure and middleware space. Ascent Capital and Semantic- Space could not be reached for comments.

Ascent Capital manages three funds, of which the first two are fully invested in 40 companies. Ascent India Fund III was closed in December 2009 making the fund one of the few to exceed its fund-raising goals in a difficult fund-raising environment.

Cumulatively, Ascent Capital has invested in 46 investments over 12 years and has so far structured 31 exits, including five partial realisations. Some of its investments include GMR Energy, BigBasket.com, Marg Karaikal Port, Ind-Bharat Power Infra among others.

This move to exit Ascent Capital comes at a time when private equity firms invested about $2.3 billion across 82 deals during quarter-ended June 2013, according to early data from Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and valuations in India.

The investment amount was 17.7 per cent higher than that invested during the same period last year ($1.9 billion across 114 transactions) and almost 2.3 times than that invested during the immediate previous quarter ($1 billion being invested across 80 transactions).