Tuesday, July 16, 2013: According to a recent reports, the solar sector in India has now attracted a total funding amounting to $3,857 million in the April – June period alone. This has come through 70 deals that included three transactions from India. The report statistics are based on four categories that include VC funding, project funding, debt funding and miscellaneous funding.
In the project funding category, there were three Indian deals while in the M&A segment, we see Fortum, a sustainable energy solutions provider acquiring a PV plant in Rajasthan. The three Indian deals that were listed in the April – June record under project funding include its 25 MW PV power plant in the state of Madhya Pradesh which had been funded with a sum of $50 million by Acme Solar. This is followed by another 20 MW power project by Welspun Energy in Maharashtra. The last of the Indian investments include a $8 million funding to Welspun Energy for its installation in Karnataka.
As per the reports on M&A activity and funding in the solar sector, the VC funding seems to continue. The total funding in this category was $189 million while the quarter previous year had seen a similar investment amounting to $126 million.
Raj Prabhu, the CEO for Mercom Capital Group says that since the technology based companies in the solar sector seem to be struggling, the investment was going downstream. He, however, added that the investment hasn’t yet dried up and that it was the niche market that’s generating more interest rather than larger CPV and CSP companies.
The total M&A activity in Q2 amounts to $1.27 billion in 18 transactions and includes strategic acquisitions, inverter market consolidation and acquisition of the distressed assets and companies.
