PE-VC deals up 30% in Nov, value falls 34%

Chennai: Automotive, healthcare and logistics sector boosted deal activity and provided diversity in an otherwise subdued November for privateeEquity (PE) and venture capital (VC) industry.
The month saw $2.7 billion of PE-VC investments across 70 deals, data from Venture Intelligence shows. This was a 34% fall in terms of value from October, but deal count increased 30% from the previous month.Investment activity was down 15% year-on-year compared to $3.2 billion worth deals recorded in the pre-Covid period of November 2019. Cars24, an online marketplace for used cars, turned ‘unicorn’ in November with a $200 million Series E raise from DST Global and others. Nutraceuticals player OmniActive Health Technologies raised $150 million from TA Associates and Goldman Sachs invested $150 million in Biocon Biologics.
Debt-laden Essel Group’s sale of tollways to the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) for $270 million was another large deal. Arun Natarajan , founder and MD, Venture Intelligence said that the deals this month were spread across a wide variety of sectors, suggesting a gradual return to normalcy for PE-VC sector from here on.“This was perhaps the first month when deal activity went beyond the tailwinds of the pandemic like edtech or Reliance,” he said.
Fundraising by Reliance Industries, which has hitherto driven PE-VC capital deployment during the pandemic, made up just 47% of the total fundraising in November compared to 65% in October. Reliance Retail raised around $1.3 billion from the Public Investment Fund in the month.
E-commerce logistics startup XpressBees figured among the top VC investments of the month raising $110 million from InvestCorp and other investors. SaaS co MindTickle raised $100 million from SoftBank Corp and others in another large deal.
For the January to November period, 2020 has recorded $34.5 billion from 695 deals, compared to $34.4 billion from 927 deals last year.