In just nine months of 2017, Indian companies have raised record investments from venture capital investors and private equity firms.
Between January and September this year, venture capitalists and private equity firms poured in $17.6 billion (Rs 1.17 lakh crore) into Indian companies, surpassing the all-time high of $17.3 billion in 2015, data from market research firm Venture Intelligence showed.
“Unlike 2015, which was a very e-commerce-dominated year (in terms of funding), this year, other sectors, such as infrastructure or banking and financial services, have contributed,” Arun Natarajan, CEO of Venture Intelligence, said.
Japan’s Softbank, which burnt its fingers with some poor investments over the last couple of years, seems to have regained its mojo.
Nearly a quarter of the money that has poured into Indian companies so far in 2017 has been from the Masayoshi Son-led firm. It invested $2.4 billion in India’s largest e-commerce firm Flipkart, $1.4 billion in e-payments startup Paytm, and $250 million in hotel aggregator Oyo. Softbank has said that it aims to invest $10 billion in India, of which it has already brought in around $6 billion by now.
While the quantum of funding rose, the number of investments has been far lower this year than 2016, indicating that investors are being choosy.
There were 21 investments of over $200 million in size, and 15 valued between $100 million and $200 million, Venture Intelligence reported.
The largest investments during July-September 2017 were:
This article first appeared on Quartz.