Prosus deployed $1.02B in Indian startups in H1 of FY 2022

Euronext listed Prosus, which holds South African conglomerate Naspers global internet assets, reported investing $1.02 billion in equity transactions across its portfolio companies in India for the six month period from April 2021 to September 30, 2021. 

The figure does not include its recent investment into a direct-to-consumer roll-up entity Good Glamm Group.

This is in stark contrast to the $75 million deployed by the entity for FY 2020-21 across companies in which it has minority shareholding, excluding its existing business verticals in India.

Of the $1.02 billion, the fund had deployed $793 million in the first quarter of FY 2021-22 across multiple investments. 

For the six-month period ending September 30, 2021, Prosus has deployed $274 million in foodtech major Swiggy,  with 33 percent stake on a fully diluted basis. In its report, Naspers said that Swiggy’s business was back to pre-COVID-19 levels with a GMV of $984 million for the first half of FY 2021-22. While revenue for food delivery business grew by 56 percent year-on-year, the revenue growth for grocery stood at 171 percent year-on-year, due to increased demand during the second wave of COVID-19 in India and expansion of Supr Daily and Instamart business verticals. 

In April, Prosus had also deployed $30 million in logistics services company ElasticRun and $153 million in edtech major BYJU'S, apart from $84 million in Urban Company.

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Prosus also invested $220 million in IPO-bound Pharmeasy in two tranches with 14 percent stake in the company on a fully diluted basis in May. In August, the fund pumped in $127 million of $650 million raised by higher education platform Eruditus which valued the company at $3.2 billion. It also added $134 million to Meesho's recent funding round which valued the company at $4.9 billion in September. 

Earlier this year, the fintech business of Prosus, PayU, acquired payment company BillDesk for $4.7 billion. In its half-yearly report, Prosus said that with the acquisition, the combined online payment business of PayU and BillDesk is expected to be among the top-10 globally. 

India, which continues to be the largest market for PayU, demonstrated 44 percent CAGR over the last two years despite the second wave of COVID-19. The growth is credited to a diversified merchant portfolio, including the addition of financial services, ecommerce, and bill payments. 

“Our payments and fintech segment continued to benefit from the shift to digital payments. Revenue grew 42 percent to $359 million, driven largely by a strong performance from the Indian payments business and a recovery in credit,” said the report.