Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) funds in India have tightened their purse strings. That’s because limited partners (LPs) - the main source of funding for venture capitalists — are reducing their exposure in this space. As per industry estimates, there has been a drop in new investments to the tune of 71% during the first nine months of 2009 as compared to the same period last year. Industry observers say limited partners are miffed with the returns shown by the general partners, who manage the fund and its operations on a daily basis, say industry observers. “Clearly, many LPs are looking at better returns and shorter investment term cycles,” says Sameer Mehta of Atlas Advisory.   more »

Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Ltd. is looking to raise around $300 million through a stake sale to pay off its debt, the unlisted Indian telecom tower company's managing director said Wednesday. "We are looking to sell less than a 10% stake. It will most probably be a fresh issue (of shares) to private-equity companies," Sunil Kanoria, who is also the company's vice chairman, told Dow Jones Newswires. The company holds a 49% stake in Wireless TT Info-Services Ltd., or WTTIL, which was earlier named Wireless Tata Telecom Infrastructure Ltd. Wireless Tata Telecom Infrastructure was formed via a merger of the telecom tower operations of Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Quippo in January.   more »

Private Equity deals slowed to a four-year low of $644MM in Q3 Sep’09. (Year to date(Jan-Sep’09),113 private equity deals with $2,186MM were closed ) The quarter was the worst quarter in terms of deal value as total transactions size declined to $644MM compared to $793MM and 749MM in Q2 and Q1.   more »

Apalya Technologies, a Hyderabad based company providing India’s No.1 Mobile Video platform, announced funding of US$ 3 million from IDG Ventures India and Qualcomm Ventures. Consort Capital, a premier Mumbai-based investment bank, was the advisor for the deal. Mumbai Angels, a leading angel investment group, along with some other angel investors, are also stakeholders in the Company. Apalya Technologies has pioneered and emerged as a leader in developing and enabling Mobile Video Delivery Platform that seamlessly streams video content to Mobile Consumers. It aggregates premium entertainment content from many different content providers, content aggregators and mobile advertisers and then delivers the same on Mobiles optimizing the content to be suitable for viewing on small-screens.   more »