Page 8 - Venture Capital

PE/VC investments dip to 43-month low of $1.6bn in November: Report

Investments by private equity and venture capital funds plummeted to a 43-month low of USD 1.6 billion in November, a report said on Tuesday. The investments were 69 per cent lower than the year-ago period and 60 per cent less than October, the report by industry's lobby grouping Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA) and the consultancy firm EY said. By volume terms, there were 58 deals in November 2023 as against 106 in the year-ago period and 73 in October 2023, the report said. Based on the available data, the consultancy firm's partner Vivek Soni said he anticipates PE/VC investments for 2023 to come at 10-12 per cent below the USD 56 billion in 2022. "This fall has been primarily fuelled by a sharp contraction in startup investments and a drop in number of large deals on account of the widening bid ask spread between investor valuations and seller expectations," he added. In November, there were six large deals of value greater than USD 100 million, aggregat

Snacking brand Farmley raises Rs 56 crore from BC Jindal Group, others

Snacking brand Farmley has raised USD 6.7 million, about Rs 56 crore, in a funding round led by BC Jindal Group, a top company official said. Existing investors DSG Consumer Partners, Omnivore and Alkemi Partners also participated in the funding round. Farmley Co-Founder Akash Sharma told PTI that the company has raised USD 6.7 million which will be utilised in innovation, expanding distribution channel and brand building efforts. "These funds will play a pivotal role in fuelling our product innovation efforts, in diversifying distribution channels and in amplifying the brand building efforts. We would like to make people's snacking experiences more wholesome by operating on consumer first principles," Sharma said. He said the company registered a revenue of around Rs 150 crore in the financial year 2023 and has now touched an annual recurring revenue of Rs 300 crore. The brand recently onboarded Indian cricket team coach and former captain Rahul Dravid as its brand ...

Venture capital funds backing fewer women startups than men-led ones: Irani

Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday hit out at venture capital funds for not backing women-led innovative startups, and instead taking bets on entities founded by men. The Union Minister for Women and Child Development said there are many women innovators in science and technology, but rued that their strides are not getting translated into commercial ventures. "Even today, risk taking by VCs for women-led initiatives which are based on innovation is far lower as compared to those by men," Irani said, addressing an event organised by MentorMyBoard. One has to check how many women do not become a part of the corporate boardrooms despite being innovative, she said. Irani acknowledged that her recent statement in Parliament opposing period leaves for women has caused an "uproar", but stuck to her stance saying allowing so will have deep concerns on privacy. "Can you imagine a scenario where the HR head of your company knows your menstrual cycle every month. Can you imagine the scen

Indian PE/VCs deliver higher returns than bourses, says Crisil report

"A key contributor to this success has been the PE-VC markets, which have risked capital and sown financial know-how," said the Crisil report

India has $20 bn dry powder waiting to be invested: Peak XV MD Anandan

Says investors are looking to invest unallocated capital in sectors like AI

Agilitas Sports secures Rs 100 cr Investment from Nexus Venture Partners

Sport comprises 16 per cent of the Indian footwear market and is the fastest-growing segment

Venture capital Sauce.vc acquires around 3% stake in GRM Foodkraft

Basmati rice company GRM Overseas on Monday said it has sold more than 3 per cent stake in its subsidiary GRM Foodkraft to venture capital fund Sauce.vc for an undisclosed amount. Sauce has also acquired an additional 1 per cent stake from other shareholders in GRM Foodkraft, which focuses on domestic foods business. Atul Garg, MD, GRM Overseas Ltd. said the company has roped in Sauce.vc as a strategic investor. "We look forward to deriving substantial advantages from the wealth of experience and a demonstrable history of creating new-age brands by the Sauce team. Our goal is to evolve our brands into distinguished names in their respective product categories," he said. The company would intend to work with the Sauce team to identify emerging areas for launching new brands in packaged foods and to explore deepening its presence in digital channels including e-grocers, quick commerce, and e-commerce. "Sauce's investment aligns with our commitment to rapidly scale and diversify our

Private equity, venture capital investments dropped to $3.4 bn in October

Investments by Private Equity and Venture Capital (PE/VC)funds have declined to USD 3.4 billion for October, a report said on Tuesday. By value, the bets were 3 per cent lower than USD 3.5 billion in the year-ago period, and 19 per cent lower than USD 4.2 billion in September, the report by industry lobby grouping IVCA and EY, a consultancy, said. The number of deals or volumes was also lower at 70 transactions in October as against 80 in the year-ago period and 83 in a month earlier, the report said. "Although the Indian consumption story continues to remain strong, the increase in uncertainty on account of global factors and impending state and central elections in India seem to be slowing down progress in deal pipeline activity," the consultancy firm's partner Vivek Soni said. Stating that he has a "cautiously optimistic" outlook, Soni said PE/VC investments are still lacking momentum, especially in the startup space. October witnessed nine large deals totalling USD 2.4 billion

DIEZ launches AED 500 mn venture capital fund to finance tech startups

The new fund was launched on the sidelines of the Dubai Business Forum, which is being organised by Dubai Chambers under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid

BS BFSI Summit 2023: No funding winter in PE investments, say experts

India is a highly favoured destination for investment in APAC, Renuka Ramnath, founder and CEO at Multiples Alternate Asset said at Business Standard's BFSI Insight Summit 2023

SoftBank's venture capital fund SVF Growth to sell 1.1% in Zomato

SVF Growth will sell the stake at an offer price of Rs 109.4 to Rs 111.65 per share, a 2 per cent discount to its current market price at the lower end, the report added

Artha Venture announces second exit at 19-fold return from mobility firm

Company says Fund 1 drawing to a close after investing in 31 firms

Former Swiggy CTO Dale Vaz gets funding for new venture Aaritya Tech

At Aaritya, Vaz is now building a new-age trading platform for individual investors to help them trade and invest

VC firm gradCapital launches $6 million fund for students' startups

Bengaluru-based venture capital fund gradCapital has launched its second fund of USD 6 million (about Rs 49 crore) to invest in students' startups. The VC fund on Friday said it will offer a standard cheque of USD 40,000 (Rs 33 lakh) at 4 per cent equity in companies set up by students. gradCapital co-founder and CEO Abhishek Sethi said, "We are not in the business of finding and investing in deals, we are in the business of letting students be more ambitious and build a future, despite having a challenging education system. Students are more likely to start a D2C company instead of a quantum computer, and we need more of the latter." The selected entrepreneurs will take part in a four-week cohort programme in Bengaluru, which will include meetings with Ather Energy co-founder Tarun Mehta, Razorpay co-founder Shashank Kumar and Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh, the company said. The fund is backed by CIIE.CO and the cohort has Nearbuy co-founder Ankur Warikoo, Info Edge founder and Executi

Private equity, venture capital investments falls 5% to $3.9 bn in July

Private equity and venture capital funds' investments in the country declined 5 per cent to USD 3.9 billion across 59 deals in July, a report said on Thursday. While overall investments were lower than the USD 4.1 billion in July last year, the amount was 17 per cent higher than June this year, as per the report by industry lobby IVCA and consultancy firm EY. The number of transactions was down 26 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 59 in July while month-on-month it slipped 20 per cent. Vivek Soni, partner at EY, said sentiment in India for tech sector investments remains "tepid" and fund raising by startups in the country has been sluggish. The deal momentum is likely to pick up in the second half of 2023, he said, adding that India has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies and its importance is increasing in global supply chains. Buyouts in value terms were at USD 2.5 billion across five deals as against USD 1.6 billion in the same number of deals a year ago, the report

Sebi reduces time limit for AIFs, VCs to invest overseas to 4 months

Capital markets regulator Sebi on Friday reduced the validity period of approval given to alternative investment funds (AIFs) and venture capital funds (VCFs) for making overseas investments to four months from six months at present. If these funds fail to make investments within this time limit, then Sebi can allocate their unutilized limits to other applicant AIFs and VCs. The decision has been taken considering into account the recommendation of the Alternative Investments Policy Advisory Committee, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular. Under the rule, AIFs and VCFs have a time limit of six months from the date of prior approval from Sebi to making the allocated investments in offshore venture capital undertakings. In case the applicant AIFs and VCFs does not utilize the limits allocated to them within six months then Sebi can allocate such unutilized limit to another applicant. "It has been decided to reduce the aforesaid time limit for making

Venture capital investment declines slightly to $77.4 bn in Q1: KPMG report

Venture capital investment globally declined slightly to USD 77.4 billion across 7,783 deals in the June quarter as investors continued to hold back from making large mega-deals amidst uncertainties, a KPMG report said on Thursday. In a report titled Venture Pulse Q2 2023, which analyses venture funding globally, KPMG said VC investment held relatively steady in April-June, led by a USD 6.8 billion raise by US-based Stripe, USD 2 billion raise by Singapore-based Shein, USD 1.3 billion raise by US-based AI startup Inflection, and USD 700 million raise by India-based Byju. With regard to India, the report said despite a small uptick quarter-over-quarter, VC investment remained very subdued. The April-June quarter of 2022 saw over USD 8 billion in VC investment in India. The largest deals in Q2 2023 in India included a USD 700 million raise by edtech Byju, USD 600 million raise by online optical platform Lenskart, and USD 168.1 million raise by mobile balance management app company Tru

Venture capital firm Cactus Venture Partners invests $4 mn in Kapture CX

Venture capital firm Cactus Venture Partners on Thursday said it has invested USD 4 million (about Rs 33 crore) in software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based customer support automation startup Kapture CX. Founded in 2014, Kapture CX provides business solutions to automate customer support over call, e-mail, chat and social media for retail, travel, banking and financial services (BFSI) and consumer durable companies. "We are seeing a lot of demand from enterprises to enhance their customer experience. No one is happy with their customer support platform provider and large incumbents are struggling to meet the requirements of enterprise customers. "The bets we have placed on Gen AI capabilities and expansions in select international markets have paid off quite well. We intend to use this capital efficiently in growth markets we have identified," Co-Founders of Kapture CX Sheshgiri Kamath and Vikas Garg said. Kapture CX has operations in the US, UAE, Indonesia and the Philippines apart from

Together Fund announces new fund worth $150 mn; to focus on AI startups

Together Fund was founded by Girish Mathrubootham, (co-founder, Freshworks), Manav Garg, (founder, Eka Software) and Shubham Gupta, who used to lead SaaS deals at Matrix Partners India

VC investment in Indian startups declines by 76.4% YoY in H1 2023: Report

India is among the top five global markets in terms of both VC funding deal volume and value and has experienced a relatively higher impact compared to the US, China, and the UK