Private equity investments, excluding real estate, increased 11 per cent in terms of deal value to USD 11.42 billion in 2014 from USD 10.32 billion in the previous year, says a report.
According to the provisional year-end data (until December 29, 2014) culled out from VCCEdge, the financial research platform, there was a 11 per cent jump in deal value even as the number of transactions declined 4 per cent to 734 deals as against 764 deals in 2013.
"2014 has been the year of venture capital, while late stage private equity deals slowed down. With India's Internet usage and penetration going up, several net-based business models including e-commerce have been in the forefront of raising capital this year," Sahad PV, Founder & CEO, The VCCircle Network, which owns VCCEdge data platform said.
The report further said the median deal amount increased 9 per cent from USD 2.75 million to USD 3 million and the average deal value increased 18 per cent from USD 17 million to USD 20 million between CY2014 and CY2013.
The consumer discretionary sector, piggybacking on the growing ecommerce story, recorded a mammoth USD 4.6 billion in investments, the maximum amount of private equity capital invested in any sector during the year.
The other sector to rake in significant private equity investments was information technology with USD 2.32 billion; the 297 deals across which this capital was invested places the sector at the top of the deal volume pack.
Early stage investing picked up with more capital being invested to fund startups across sectors. Angel/seed investments stood at USD 109 million spread across 280 deals, compared to the USD 69 million in CY2013.
VC investments also grew 50 per cent in value from USD 1.41 billion in 2013 to USD 2.12 billion in 2014.
The deal of the year was Flipkart, raising over USD 1.91 billion in investments in 2014 across three deals from new as well as old investors, including Tiger Global Management LLC, Accel India Venture Fund.
Another landmark deal for the ecommerce industry seen during the year was the USD 637 million raised by Snapdeal, the report noted.
