The first quarter of 2016 witnessed meagre activity in the private equity space in Chennai. Only four PE deals involving $53 million have been signed till date as against 12 deals amounting to $73 million in the first quarter of 2015.
Analysis done by Venture Intelligence, a firm that collects data on private company financials, transactions and their valuations in India shows that January was a dry month for the State as far as PE activity was concerned, while February saw one deal by Hong Kong-based PE firm ADV Partners which invested $45 million in Chennai-based healthcare firm Dr. Agarwal’s Healthcare Ltd. Three firms – Veritas Finance, IFMR Holdings and Aahaa.in – received funding in March.
The number of deals at the national level was also tepid. PE firms invested across 144 deals during the quarter ended March 2016 against 191 deals in the same period last year and 152 deals in the quarter ended December 2015. However, they invested about $3,620 million in the first three months of 2016 against $2,922 million in the same period last year—an increase of 24 per cent.
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Arun Natarajan, Managing Director, Venture Intelligence, said, “Deals in technology space is missing this quarter in Chennai. But again firms like Freshdesk and others have raised funds earlier and were smart enough to capitalise ahead of time.”
According to Arun, things would change and pick up momentum in the next quarter. The first three months of this calendar year saw a lot of angel and seed stage investors backing startups.
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There were 50 angel investment deals across the country. But again, Chennai had only one angel investment (SP Robotic Works) during this quarter.
The Indian Angel Network, along with The Chennai Angels, invested Rs. 2 crore in SP Robotic Works, a startup that provides robotic education to school and college students.