According to the Indian tech startup funding report released by Inc42 for H1 2017, over 71 mergers and acquisitions took place during January-June 2017. Also, if we look at the overall picture, over 343 merger and acquisitions have taken place in India since H1 2015.

With markets turning into a battleground and competition between players getting fiercer in every sector, IPOs are not the preferred routes anymore and M&A trends have emerged stronger. Specifically, in the consumer internet segment, the last major IPO we heard was of Just Dial in 2013.

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Post-that, mergers, acquisitions, and particularly acqui-hires have seen a rise. Flipkart is the biggest example for M&A trends While on the way to being credited with the tag of beginning Startup Mafia in India, the company has acquired 11 startups since inception. A majority of these deals were acqui-hires.

In H1 2017, while Snapdeal’s merger with Flipkart (or the newly emerged opponent Infibeam) is yet to take place, eBay selling its India business to Flipkart and Housing getting acquired by PropTiger have already made headlines.

Also, in the past few years, startup investors have become much more cautious when it comes to timely and profitable exits. Not only are they supporting investee companies financially, but they also have a say in their day-to-day decisions. Thus, pushing for exits has become a common phenomenon. Japan-based SoftBank Inc. has appeared as the most shrewd investor in the present time – pushing for M&As with most of its big ticket deals such as Housing and Snapdeal.

Indian Startup Merger And Acquisitions Trends [H1 2017]
Major acquirers for January-June 2017 include CureFit, Happiest Minds Technologies, PKC Laundries, and Quikr. The sectors which received a maximum number of deals are the hyperlocal/consumer services sector followed by enterprise tech and ecommerce. Over 14 deals took place in hyperlocal in H1 2017, but the segment hit an all-time high in H1 2016 with 22 deals. Sectors such as edtech, healthtech, ecommerce and logistics witnessed three M&As each in H1 2017. In all, in H1 2017, over 41 acquisitions, two mergers and 27 acqui-hires took place.