NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Social/ Impact Venture Firms invested about US$95mn over 53 deals in India during the twelve months ended December 2015, according to data from Venture Intelligence, India’s longest serving research service focused on private company financials, transactions and valuations.. Deal activity increased 8.2% compared to 2014 (which had witnessed 49 such investments valued at US$106mn).

The larger sized investments during 2015 included the US$15mn investment in Swarna Pragati Housing Microfinance (by investors including Zephyr Peacock, Omidyar Network, Aavishkaar Goodwell and Intellecap Impact Investment Network) and the LGT Venture Philanthropy led US$8mn investment in dental clinic chain myDentist.

With 14 investments worth about US$25mn, the Information Technology and IT-Enabled Services (IT & ITES) industry emerged as the favorite industry for investments among Social Venture Capital investors too during 2015 accounting for 26% of the investment activity (27% by value). The larger investments in IT & ITES companies included the US$5mn from Unitus Impact and Exifinity Fund raised by Shotang, a B2B E-Commerce marketplace which raised and a similar amount invested in SME funding platform Indifi by Elevar Equity along with Accel India and angel investors. Other IT & ITES investments by Impact Investors during 20-15 included regional languages focused tech firm Reverie Language Technologies (Aspada and Qualcomm Ventures), m-commerce firm Lookup (Khosla Impact and others) and credit scoring firm CreditMantri (Elevar Equity, Accion International and IDG Ventures India).