Private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments for August touched $2.2 billion across 83 deals, down 80 percent from the same period last year, according to IVCA-EY's monthly PE/VC round-up.

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After remaining resilient for almost seven months, the PE/VC investments in August 2022 were the lowest in the past 19 months, 80 percent lower than the value recorded in August 2021 ($11.2 billion) and 46 percent lower than investments in July 2022 ($4.1 billion).

Vivek Soni, Partner, and National Leader, Private Equity Services, EY said, "All deal segments recorded sharp declines on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, in the range of 70-90 percent, primarily due to the absence of large deals."

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August 2022 recorded just five large deals (deals of value greater than or equal to $100 million) aggregating $972 million, compared to 18 large deals worth $9.2 billion in August 2021 and seven deals worth $3.3 billion in July 2022, he said.

Exits

August 2022 has been the best month for exits in 2022, recording 25 exits worth $3.1 billion, a significant improvement over the previous month which recorded $322 million across nine deals. Nonetheless, it was significantly lower compared to August 2021, which recorded exits worth $7.4 billion across 42 deals, the report said.

The strong exit performance in August 2022 was on account of a few large open market exits which, included KKR selling its 28 percent stake in Max Health for $1.2 billion and Blackstone selling its 14 percent stake in Sona BLW for $509 million.

Healthcare sector

Most sectors recorded a sharp decline in PE/VC investments in August 2022. The healthcare sector, however, bucked the trend to record a YoY increase of 485 percent in PE/VC investments.

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The healthcare sector in India has grown in favour among PE/VC funds in recent years, receiving almost $9.5 billion in investments since 2017. The exit performance too has been good in this sector, with exits worth almost $5.3 billion in the same period, the report added.

Fundraise

August 2022 recorded total fundraises worth $493 million by four funds, compared to $1.9 billion raised in July 2021 across 11 funds. The largest fundraise in August 2022 was by Fundamentum India, which raised its second fund of $227 million to invest in about 12 early growth-stage companies working in software-as-a-service (SaaS), healthcare, digital content and businesses that are building for non-metro cities.