The funding environment in India for startups is improving this year if one were to go by Bain & Company estimates.
Five private equity (PE) investors that come on top on the criterion of deal size collectively put in $9 billion in the first half of 2024, surpassing their outlay for last calendar year, when it was $8 billion.
At the top of the list is Swedish firm EQT, which acquired US-based and listed Perficient at an enterprise value of $3 billion, the deal being done by the Indian wing of the company.
It has also added to its list by putting in $500 million in WSO2, a “software as a service” company, increasing its tally to $3.5 billion.
The PE major up to now has invested over $8 billion in the country through more than 30 deals, making it a force to reckon with.
It has said it would invest around $5 billion this year in India.
At second place is Blackstone, which closed deals worth $2.5 billion in the first half this year.
Next in line are three other global players that come third.
They are TPG (it bought digital services company Altimetrik), KKR (it bought Healthium Medtech at an enterprise value of $840 million), and home-grown ChrysCapital (which invested ~830 crore in the Centre for Sight and raised $700 million to maintain its stake in the National Stock Exchange.
Their share in PE deal value surged to 75 per cent compared to 50 per cent last year during the same period.
The PE funds have shown preference for buyouts, whose share in deal value was 55 per cent in the first half this year from 47 per cent in the same period last year.
The first half showed the return of big transactions, with seven deals which were over $500 million, underscoring a strategic shift to scale.
Clearly consumer tech is back as a favourite.
The deal value in this segment hit $2.3 billion in the first half of 2024 compared to $1.3 billion last year in the same year.
Prabhav Kashyap, partner in Bain & Company, said PEs were focused and targeted a few deals like Zepto, which raised $665 million, Meesho $275 million, Lenskart $200 million, and PocketFM $100 million.
“PEs invested in companies where there was a clear path to profitability.”
Kashyap said in information technology/information technology-enabled services the focus would be on specific segments as against the broader sector-like data and analytics or digital IT companies.
In manufacturing too in the next 12-18 months the areas where there will be deals are packaging space, component manufacturing, energy transition, and electronics manufacturing.
