India Inc has seen 219 deals, aggregating to $8.4 billion in August, record volumes for any given month since 2005. While the volumes have almost doubled compared with August 2020, transaction value has jumped by 5.8 times, driven by over 13 times increase in value of private equity (PE) investments, according to Grant Thornton Bharat Deal Tracker. 

August 2021 has recorded a total M&A transaction, valued at $867 million, across 37 deals as opposed to August 2020’s 30 deals, valued collectively at $908 million. 

PE and venture capital (VC) firms have recorded 182 deals, valued at $7.6 billion, driven mainly by high value investment in Indian companies and unicorns, supported by confidence in recovery, lucrative opportunities in the startup space and promising entrepreneurial talent. 

“Domestic consolidation led to 68 per cent of the deal volumes in M&A. Unicorns, such as Byju’s, Unacademy and Dream Sports, sealed some of the M&A deals. As improvement in industrial indicators and external demand unfold, we hope economic activities would normalise in the coming months, driven by pent-up demand, ongoing vaccination drive, support from policy mix and a resurgence in global growth,” said Shanthi Vijetha, a partner (growth) of Grant Thornton Bharat. 

The star sector of the month continued to be technology, followed by education, pharmaceutical and energy sectors. The bulk of the deals were in IT solutions, data analytics, cleantech, pharmaceutical, e-commerce, consumer retail, digital healthcare, fintech and edtech companies, whose products and services have seen strong demand during the pandemic.