Private Equity (PE) investments in India rose to their highest ever figure of $33.1 billion in 2018, led by investor interest in the IT and ITeS sector. According to data from Venture Intelligence, the figure came on the back of 720 transactions. In 2017, PE investments stood at $24.3 billion across 734 deals, added the company. 

IT & ITeS companies accounted for the lion’s share of the investment, comprising 32 per cent of the pie attracting $10.6 billion across 383 deals during the year. PE investments had already surpassed the 2017 mark in the first nine months of 2018, with mega investments in consumer internet and mobile startups such as Swiggy and Byjus towards the year-end helping the 2018 total jump by 36 per cent year-on-year. The figures include venture capital investments, but exclude PE investments in real estate segment.

The year witnessed 81 PE investments worth $100 million or more accounting for 77 per cent of the total investment value during the period, compared to 47 such transactions in 2017. Of these, 40 were larger than $200 million each, accounting for 60 per cent of the total value compared to 30 such investments in the year-ago period, data showed.

“The mid-year Walmart-Flipkart deal clearly re-energised international investors’ appetite for mega bets in Indian Internet & mobile companies. This has helped offset the slowdown in investments in sectors like financial services, manufacturing, and infrastructure towards the year-end triggered by nervousness in the public markets and the IL&FS scare,” said Arun Natarajan, Founder of Venture Intelligence. 2018 also saw eight new Unicorn companies being minted: Oyo, PolicyBazaar, Swiggy, PaytmMall, Byjus, BillDesk, Freshworks, and Udaan.

Leading investments in 2018 included the $1 billion investment in Swiggy from investors including South Africa-based Naspers, and hotel chain Oyo raising capital from SoftBank.Swiggy had started the year with a $100 million investment round led by Naspers, and followed it up with a mid-year $210 million fund raise co-led by Naspers and DST Global. It polished off the year with a $1 billion investment led by Naspers and Tencent. Hotel chain Oyo meanwhile raised $800 million with an additional commitment for $200 million led by SoftBank Vision Fund. 

Among other top deals, Paytm raised $445 million from SoftBank and Alibaba for its e-commerce business Paytm Mall and $356 million from Berkshire Hathaway at the parent company level. Freshworks raised a $100 million round from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and CapitalG, and e-commerce platform Udaan raised $225 million from existing investors DST Global and Lightspeed Ventures. 

32% of PE investment were in IT/ITeS
36%annual growth in total PE investments
81PE deals worth more than $100 mn each
40PE deals worth more than $200 mn each

Top deals in 2018
Large ticket investments in 2018 included $1 billion in Swiggy by investors including Naspers, $800 million raised by Oyo from Softbank and Tencent, $445 million raised by Paytm from Softbank and Alibaba, and $300 million raised by BillDesk from Temasek, etc