With three corporate-backed startups going public, most of India’s exits in November went through the public markets.
Corporate investors who backed Indian startups are now starting to reap the financial rewards as a string of companies continues to make their stock market debuts.
November saw the $828m listing of eyewear retailer Lenskart, providing an exit for investors such as SoftBank, the $789m IPO of online investment platform Groww, whose investors included BBVA's venture arm Propel Venture Partners, and the $440m IPO of merchant commerce platform provider Pine Labs, which was backed by Mastercard, PayPal and Kotak Mahindra bank.
India's IPO market is picking up steam faster than other regions, accounting for half of the IPOs achieved by corporate-backed startups in November. These were among more than 20 companies identified by GCV in September as getting set to go public, an indicator that India's IPO pipeline still has more to come.
The total number of exits for corporate-backed startups globally was lower in November than in the previous two months, mainly due to a lower number of mergers and acquisitions. The public markets, by contrast, have been more active than usual, with six IPOs and three SPAC mergers.
Half the listings happened in the APAC region, with China’s enterprise data intelligence application software provider MiningLamp’s $116m IPO complementing India’s three, while Swedish electric autonomous freight vehicle manufacturer Einride’s SPAC listing was the only one in Europe.
Fernando Moncada Rivera
Fernando Moncada Rivera is a reporter at Global Corporate Venturing and also host of the CVC Unplugged podcast.
