It was rumoured earlier that Bharti Telesoft was lapping up the Bangalore based mobile handset software company Jataayu Software. The Economic Times reports that the Delhi-based Bharti arm may have reached an agreement to buy the startup for $20 million. Bharti Telesoft is the value added services subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises, which owns majority stake [...]

Hyderabad’s engineering and construction firms continue to attract private equity investments. 3i India Infrastructure Fund, an investment fund established by 3i Group, has invested $101 million for a minority stake in Soma Enterprise Ltd, a city based engineering and construction firm. Company director Ankineedu Maganti and his family will maintain a large majority stake in [...]

Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and NEA Indo-US ventures have jointly invested $2 million (or Rs 8 crore) in Bangalore-based start-up, mGinger. DFJ has put in $1.5 million and NEA Indo-US the remaining $500K, according to DFJ Venture Partner Sateesh Andra as he spoke to ContentSutra. mGinger runs a permission-based mobile advertisement service, whereby mobile users [...]

With Edelweiss Capital and Religare Enetrprises IPOs being oversold more than 100 times (109 and 160 times, respectively, to be precise), it’s hard to resist the temptation from other broking firms to go in for public listings. Apparently a host of firms like Enam Securities, Anand Rathi Securities, Angel Broking and Anagram Stock Broking, are [...]

On one side the government (rather Reserve Bank and SEBI) is wary of the increased private equity fund inflows, but on the other side, it’s looking to relax norms for private equity funds in certain sectors. The Economic Times today reports that the government is contemplating allowing private equity funds to be part of the [...]

Mint has a story on how India-focused private equity funds have diversified their sources of capital from the pension and endowment funds in the US and Europe, the traditional bastions of limited partners, to the upcoming private equity havens like West Asia and Japan. That is not surprising since the region is sitting with a [...]

Info Edge Ltd, the owners of jobs portal Naukri.com, was the first Indian company to list in Indian stock markets last year. Now the company has crossed another milestone. It has crossed $1 billion in market capitalisation. As of yesterday, the market cap was Rs 4,300 crore plus (the value of the holdings of Sanjiv [...]

Growth capital sector is likely to see an abundance of capital. Madrid-based non-resident Indian Harish Fabiani-sponsored Frontline Strategy has launched a new $200 million India Industrial Growth Fund (IIGF) focused on growth sectors. The Mauritius headquartered fund will make private equity investments in small and medium enterprises in the range of $10-12 million. The companies [...]

Citigroup Venture Capital International (CVCI) has picked up nearly 30 per cent stake in Mumbai-based bulk drug maker Unimark Remedies for Rs 113 crore ($28.75 million), reports The Economic Times. This is apparently CVC’s first investment in the pharma sector in India. Unimark Remedies, which has plants in Vapi and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, plans to [...]

Nikhil Gandhi’s SKIL Group, better known for its Pipavav Port, is joining hands with the Iceland-based investment bank, Askar Capital, for a $500 million private equity fund. Both Askar Capital and SKIL will hold 50 per cent stake each in the fund (see ET and DNA).
Askar Capital CEO, Tryggvi Herbertsson, said the fund would look [...]

This can be counted as the largest private equity deal in the unlisted space in India. ICICI Venture has reportedly closed an $800-million investment in Delhi-based Jaypee Infratech. Business Standard reports, quoting sources, that the Mumbai- buyout fund has picked up a 10-15 per cent stake in the privately-held subsidiary of the Jaypee Group, which [...]

ICICI Venture is on a hiring mode at the senior level. After wooing back Jayanta Banerjee from Lehman Brothers, the Mumbai-based buyout fund has roped in former Pepsi CEO in India Rajeev Bakshi as the joint managing director. According to The Economic Times, Bakshi will take charge in February or March next year. Bakshi was [...]

ACK Media, a newly launched entertainment and education Company, recently made news by acquiring children’s media brands Amar Chitra Katha (founded in 1967, it’s the largest selling children’s publication) and Tinkle (a magazine) from India Book House (IBH). The company is co-founded by Samir Patil (right), an ex-McKinsey executive, and Shripal Morakhia, the founder of [...]

i2india Holdings Ltd, a technology commercialisation and investment firm focused on creating commercial value out of intellectual property created in India, has raised £1.5 million ($3.09 million) in seed funding from individual investors like DS Brar and Donal Peck of Actis. i2india is the Indian arm of UK’s Imperial Innovations Group Plc, a company based [...]

Jayanta Banerjee has reportedly quit Lehman Brothers where he joined earlier this year as MD of private equity. The Economic Times reports that Banerjee has headed back to ICICI Venture, his earlier employer, in a “larger firm wide role involving capital raising and other corporate responsibilities”.
But what is interesting is the private equity circles in [...]