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India’s solar industry remains a favourite investment destination for venture capitalists and private equity (PE) funds even as the sector sees a number of merger and acquisitions.
Hyderabad-based renewable energy company Fourth Partner Energy, which provides solar products and turnkey services for off-grid solar power installations, raised ₹3 crore from venture capital firm, The Chennai Angels.
Boond Engineering and Development, a provider of clean energy products and services, recently closed an equity investment round led by Opes Impact Fund.
These are part of a number of fundraising deals solar companies clinched in the September quarter.
According to Mercom Capital Group, a research firm, venture capitalist funding in solar has crossed $1 billion in the first three quarters this year.
Globally, total corporate funding in the solar sector, including venture capital, PE, debt financing, and public market financing, soared to $9.8 billion by the end of the September quarter, from $6.3 billion in the previous quarter, the report noted.
The financing activity was strong all through the July-September period, and it was the best fund-raising quarter since the first quarter of 2011, Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group, said in a statement. Global venture capital and PE funding totalled $326 million in 21 deals in the September quarter, down from $452 million in 22 deals in April-June.
Like in the previous quarter, solar downstream companies attracted most of the venture capital funding in Q3, with $205 million in 11 deals.
In terms of project funding, Azure Power, an independent solar power producer, through its India renewable energy arm Azure Clean Energy, has secured a 15-year loan up to $14.3 million, noted the report.
The loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank, is for a 40 MW solar project in Rajasthan.
In terms of M&A, Swelect Energy Systems, a solar module manufacturer, has acquired the remaining 51 per cent equity shares in HHV Solar Technologies.
The report added the largest disclosed M&A transaction was the $200-million acquisition of Grapp Energies, an Indian engineering, procurement and construction and turnkey solutions provider in renewable energy, and its subsidiary Green Ripples, by Solargise, a UK-based solar project developer.
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