PE investments in India see a steep decline
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Bangalore: Lowered market confidence has resulted in a dramatic decline in the investments as private equity (PE) players invested lower sums in India in the last three months. The number of equity deals has dropped by 87 percent year-on-year and 56 percent sequentially, according to data of a PE research firm. The findings based on the data of Venture Intelligence, pinpoints that the PE firms invested about $526 million across 36 deals during the quarter ended March 2009, reports The Economic Times. The firms invested $3.9 billion across 133 deals during the same period last year and even the previous quarter saw an investment of $1.2 billion across 63 deals. The venture capital (VC) segment also saw a sharp drop with VC firms investing $44 million over just nine deals during the period. "All stages are affected because the behavioral patterns of all risk investors, i.e., PE and VCs, are exactly the same, whether at the lower or the higher end," said Sudhir Sethi, Founder, Managing Director and Chairman, IDG Ventures India. The largest PE investment during the first quarter of 2009 was the $50 million raised by media and entertainment firm Nimbus Communications from its existing investors. Among the VC investments in first quarter of 2009, the largest was the $12 million raised by U.S. and India-based chip design firm Si2 Microsystems from Ventureast and Jafco Asia.

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