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NEA-IndoUS Ventures, a venture capital co-founded by tech evangelist Vinod K. Dham and seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneur Vani Kola, has invested $5 million in Via, India's leading travel services firm. The first round of funding in Via, set up as FlightRaja last year, will be invested in expanding its products and service offerings, besides its presence through a network of agents, kiosks and franchises across the country. […] DLF, which is shortly entering the capital markets for raising around Rs 9,000 crore, is planning to float three private equity funds totalling $8 billion this August. The funds will be syndicated to foreign investors and are likely to close by December. The three funds will finance the company’s projects including infrastructure development such as roads and highways (a $2 billion fund), super luxury hotels ($1 billion) and two integrated townships of 20,000 acres each ($5 billion) by the DLF-Nakheel joint venture company. […] Brokerages are increasingly investing in small-caps starved of capital. Private equity (PE) funds floated by Indian brokerages are making big inroads into the world of smaller companies as bigger PEs stay away from them. Brokerages such as Motilal Oswal, Religare, JM Financial, Edelweiss, Anand Rathi Securities, IDBI Capital Markets, which together manage over Rs 2,600 crore, are seeing opportunities in the small-cap space, providing the much-needed expansion capital to entrepreneurs, who otherwise find it tough to raise funds to meet their capital requirements. […] Standard Chartered Private Equity has made a partial exit for its investment in Aurobindo Pharma for about Rs 95 crore. The fund had picked 4.5% of equity in the Hyderabad-based generic pharmaceuticals manufacturer three years back and had added 0.5% … […] ICICI Bank will sell 5% of its equity stake in Asset Reconstruction Company of India (Arcil) to an African bank, First Rand Bank, for little less than Rs 40 crore. Arcil deals in bad loans, and the development reflects a … […] The final line-up of suitors for the $420-million acquisition of Cambridge Solutions—among the biggest in the Indian tech space—has HCL Technologies pitched against buyout private equity giants Carlyle and Permira. ET had first reported the names of Carlyle and HCL. But the entry of Primera, the largest European buyout fund, appears to be recent, say sources. If it retains interest, this could be Permira’s first India play. The company, which mopped up about $12 billion last year, has battled US buyout funds Blackstone and KKR in deals across the US and Europe. […] Nusli Wadia`s GoAir and Madurai-based Paramount Airways are looking at a merger where the former may be open to divesting 40 percent stake to the latter, the Economic Times paper said on Tuesday. Quoting unidentified sources, the report said Paramount … […] Indian automobile component maker Amtek Auto Ltd said it has acquired the entire assets of UK-based JL French's (Witham) Ltd, a maker of aluminium components for automotive industry. The company did not disclose financial details of the deal. […] GVFL Ltd has announced divestment of its holding from Anupam GlobalSoft Ltd (formerly Anupam Infosys Ltd), a company promoted by the Anupam Group of Companies, based in Vallabh Vidyanagar and part of its ‘Gujarat IT Fund’ in 2000. This is GVFL’s 52nd exit from its 60 investments. […] Gridstone Research, an equity research start-up in Mumbai, had secured venture capital funding from three investors last March. The investors included Charles River Ventures, Helion Venture Partners and finally Maverick Capital, a $10 billion (Rs41,000 crore) American hedge fund. What appeared then to be a one-off has now become a bit of a trend. Hedge funds are fast penetrating India’s private equity market and, since mid-2005, have concluded 36 deals worth $1.7 billion. And, this is just a partial estimate, based on deals that are publicly known. The actual numbers, industry experts say, is likely to be much higher. […] |