Mercom Capital Group LLC, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm, released its report on funding and mergers & acquisition (M&A) activity for the smart grid sector during 2012. After a slow start, venture capital (VC) funding in the smart grid sector came in at Rs 2,387 crore ($434 million) in 40 deals, compared to Rs 2,073.50 crore ($377 million) in 50 deals in 2011.
There were a total of 66 investors in 2012 as against 92 in 2011. Only six of the 40 deals were early stage transactions compared to 16 in 2011. The average VC funding round in 2012 was Rs 59.95 crore ($10.9 million) compared to Rs 41.25 crore ($7.5 million) in 2011. The Rs 748 crore ($136 million) raise by Alarm.com skewed the average deal size upward in 2012.
Despite struggles, Home and Building Automation companies continued to raise majority of the funding Rs 1,089 crore ($198 million) in nine deals; followed by Demand Response Rs 451 crore ($82 million) in 10 deals, Grid Optimization Rs 418 crore ($76 million) in nine deals) and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) companies Rs 346.50 crore ($63 million) in eight deals.
“It is fascinating to see these three distinct sectors, solar, smart grid and healthcare IT, converge into a single offering - the ’Connected Home’,” said Raj Prabhu, managing partner of Mercom Capital Group. “Home automation companies have struggled mightily over the years to entice consumers, but the convenience and savings created by the convergence of these technologies into one offering or platform might make it more appealing,” he added.
The top VC deal in 2012 was the Rs 748 crore raised by Alarm.com from ABS Capital Partners, Equis Capital Partners, NJTC Venture Fund, and Technology Crossover Ventures; followed by Rs 165 cror ($30 million) raised by Silver Spring Networks, a smart meter networking company, from Hitachi; Rs 137.50 crore ($25 million) raised by Tendril, an energy management company, from VantagePoint, Good Energies, RRE Ventures, General Electric and Siemens; Rs 128.15 crore ($23.3 million) raised by GridPoint, an energy management company; and Rs 88 crore ($16 million) raised by demand response company Comverge from Triangle Capital Corporation.
There were some huge M&A transactions in smart grid in 2012. Though none of them were pure play smart grid companies, they all have smart grid product and service lines. A total of 23 M&A transactions were executed in 2012, amounting to almost Rs 93,500 crore ($17 billion); compared to 30 transactions for almost Rs 27,500 crore ($5 billion) in 2011 and 40 transactions for RS 7,150 crore ($1.3 billion) in 2010. M&A activity has been slowing down over the last few years as exits have been sparse.
Top M&A transactions in 2012 were the Rs 64,900 crore ($11.8 billion) acquisition of Cooper Industries, a grid and equipment company, picked up by Eaton; followed by the Rs 12,650 crore ($2.3 billion) acquisition of Elster, a smart meter company, acquired by UK investment company Melrose; and the Rs 11,000 crore ($2 billion) acquisition of Vivint, a security and home automation services company (similar to Alarm.com) by Blackstone. Other top M&A transactions were the $382 million acquisition of RuggedCom, a provider of rugged communications equipment like routers and ethernet switches for substations, which got snatched up by Siemens, and the $183 million acquisition of ZIV Group, a smart grid and automation solutions provider, acquired by Crompton Greaves.
