General Atlantic To Acquire Amar Ujala-Backed Healthcare Brand Ujala Cygnus

General Atlantic, a leading global growth investor, has announced a strategic growth investment in Amar Ujala-backed Ujala Cygnus, a healthcare provider with a network of 21 hospitals in Northern India. This partnership aims to enhance access to healthcare in Tier-II and Tier-III cities in the region.

The investment will see General Atlantic acquire a significant majority stake in Ujala Cygnus, with the company's early investors making a full exit. The financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed, but it is reported that General Atlantic will acquire about 51% of Ujala Cygnus for ₹1,600 crore.

Ujala Cygnus operates with a high-volume, low-cost model and is the first hospital in India to adopt the Indian government’s initiative of Aayushman Bharat Yojana.

With this acquisition, Ujala Cygnus' early investors — Eight Roads Ventures, Somerset Indus Capital, and Evolvence Capital, have made a full exit, reaffirming the company’s growth and track record of creating value for shareholders and investors.

This move is expected to further Ujala Cygnus's mission of providing affordable healthcare services and improving healthcare access in underserved regions of Northern India.

In 2019, popular media firm Amar Ujala acquired a majority stake in Cygnus Medicare, which operated a chain of super specialty hospitals. Following the acquisition, two hospitals from Ujala Healthcare, part of the Amar Ujala Group, were merged with Cygnus Medicare. This merger led to the formation of Ujala Cygnus, which has since expanded its network of hospitals, particularly in Northern India, serving tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

With the backing of General Atlantic and existing shareholder Amar Ujala, and under the leadership of Management Directors Mr. Probal Ghosal and Dr. Shuchin Bajaj, Ujala Cygnus aims to further amplify its reach and advance its vision of providing affordable healthcare services in Northern India.

Ujala Cygnus plans to use the investment from General Atlantic to upgrade clinical and civil infrastructure across the Ujala Cygnus network and to augment comprehensive care capabilities across key specialties in each of the markets it serves. In addition, the investment from General Atlantic will enable Ujala Cygnus to deliver on its mission to ensure improved healthcare access in underserved regions and to support healthcare professionals seeking to serve closer to their roots through expansion of its network across Northern India.

In addition to the investment from General Atlantic, Ujala Cygnus recently secured term loan facilities from Asian Development Bank, signifying further commitment and validation of its model from global development agencies.

EY India was the sole financial advisor for Ujala Cygnus on this transaction.

Codex & Premas Life Sciences Partner to Launch World's 1st and Only Fully Automated Gene Synthesis Platform in India

Premas Life Sciences (PLS) and Codex (previously known as SGI-DNA) today announced a new sales distribution agreement, appointing Premas Life Sciences as the exclusive technology and knowledge distributor of Codex's BioXP 3200 Platform in India. This is the world's first fully automated system that can synthesize upto 32 genes, libraries and clones in a single overnight run.

Through this partnership, Premas Life Sciences will empower Codex's revolutionizing technology that can significantly ramp up the current efforts in #COVID19 vaccine development, powered with BioXP's complete automation, high throughput and reduced manual error.

[caption id="attachment_145459" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] BioXp™ 3200 system[/caption]

Brian Donnelly, CCO, Codex commented, "The global scientific community has made tremendous advances in reading and understanding DNA over the past 20 years. We are now in an era where the focus is on enabling scientists to translate those insights into solutions that improve lives and the sustainability of the planet. The BioXp 3200 system allows, for the first time, scientists in India to automate, speed and optimize DNA design and synthesis in the privacy of their own lab. Our technologies combine speed and security for innovators in the fields of drug discovery, vaccine development, personalized medicine, and beyond."

"India is an exceptionally important market for drug and vaccine development, and we are pleased to announce our partnership with Premas Life Sciences, a world-class sales distributor with an impeccable track record. We look forward to expanding our presence in India through this partnership and supporting the scientific community with our portfolio of synthetic biology products. Together, we are resolutely focused on empowering scientists in India with all they need to build biology so that they can change the world. Never has this been more important than right now," added Brian Donnelly.

Praveen Gupta, MD, Premas Life Sciences commented, "We at Premas Life Science pride ourselves in bringing cutting edge technologies in the area of Genomics to India and are elated to add Codex to our ensemble menu of Products. Codex brings in the world's first and only Gene printer that is BioXp 3200 which enables researchers to print their genes overnight in the comforts and privacy of their own labs. This will catalyse the Cloning process and save precious time to get the clones ready thereby democratizing gene synthesis and pushing Indian companies and academia to support 'Make In India' vision with Synthetic Biology. We believe Premas market reach combined with BioXp 3200 technical prowess will spur the Indian pursuits of synthetic biology in academics as well as industrial applications of Biopharma, Diagnostics, Biofuels and many others including the much needed vaccine production for COVID-19."

General Atlantic to Invest $1-1.5 Bn in India's Consumer Tech Firms in Next 1-2 Yrs

New York-based private equity firm General Atlantic (GA) is looking to invest in consumer technology space in a big way, announced Sandeep Naik, India Managing Director, General Atlantic, in an interaction with CNBC TV18.

Speaking about funds deployment in India, Naik said that GA will be deploying at least $1-1.5 billion in the next year or two, which will GA's largest deployment in India over the next two years "specifically backing innovative digital disruptors that will build the Bharat of tomorrow".

For GA, Consumer technology spans across telecom platforms, grocery delivery, food delivery, digital fitness, tele-health as well as education technology.

Naik said that globally GA has about $10 billion of dry powder right now that company is willing to invest in the next 2 years. Dry powder is a slang term referred to cash reserves kept on hand by a company, venture capital firm or individual to cover future obligations, purchase assets or make acquisitions.

General Atlantic, which provides capital and strategic support for growth companies, has been investing in India since 2002 and has invested up to almost $3 billion to date. The 40-year-old PE firm has invested in more than 25 companies.

GA's portfolio companies include Capital Foods, BYJU, Euangguru, and Unacademy. Last month, GA led the Rs 230 crore funding round of NoBroker.

Established in 1980, General Atlantic is said to have pioneered the concept of growth equity a.k.a Growth capital (also called expansion capital and growth equity)-- a type of private equity investment, usually a minority investment, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new markets or finance a significant acquisition without a change of control of the business

NoBroker Raises Rs 230 Cr in Funding led by General Atlantic

Bengaluru-based startup NoBroker on Thursday said it has raised about Rs 230 crore in funding led by private equity player General Atlantic.

With this, the total funding raised by NoBroker so far stands at USD 151 million or over Rs 1,161 crore.

"This USD 30 million investment is an addition to the Series D funding, wherein the company raised USD 50 million or over Rs 615 crore in October last year taking it to USD 80 million. The initial round of Series D funding was led by Tiger Global, and General Atlantic had also participated in it," the company said in a statement.

The company plans to utilise the funds for expanding to new cities and also go deeper in the existing cities and service more customers.

"We are focused on building India's largest one-stop platform for all real estate needs. This funding will help us expand to new cities and also go deeper in the existing cities and service more customers. We will also invest further in our sales vertical," its CBO and Co-Founder Saurabh Garg said.

Last November, the firm launched its operations in Delhi-NCR  and currently operates across six cities including Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR.

In February this year, NoBroker acquired society management and ERP solutions company Society Connect in an all-cash deal to strengthen its visitor and society management app NoBrokerHood.

"We are dedicated to solve a problem that is unique to India and build India's largest real-estate technology platform that makes transactions affordable and hassle-free. We have been tripling our revenue every year and this funding will help us further improve user experience and enable faster deal closures. We will continue to add value across the user journey with continuous investment," its CEO and Co-Founder Amit Kumar said.

NoBroker, which has 35 lakh properties registered on the platform, offers a range of services from rental, sale or resale to post transaction services like loan, packers and movers, legal documentation, online rent payment, interiors, among others.

"The company also plans to further invest in its financial services to make them accessible to more people," he added.

Byju's Raises Fresh $100 Mn from General Atlantic at New Valuation of $2 Bn

India's largest education technology company Byju's, which is reinventing how students learn through mobile app, has raised a fresh $100 million in a funding from private equity player General Atlantic India for a 5% stake in the startup, which comes in a single tranche , reported Business Standard today.

With this, Byju’s valuation has reached $2 billion, which is more than double the company’s value from its previous round, and certainly marks its status as one of the emerging startups from India in the past five years.

With investment in Byju's, General Atlantic marks its first investment in the education space. The New York-based growth equity firm known for its investment in AirBnB, Slack and Snapchat among 115 other investments. The firm usually invests in four global sectors -- Consumer, Finance, Healthcare and Technology. Byju's however is an exception in a pool of its investment portfolio companies. The firm has its office in Mumbai.

Founded in 2008, by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath, BYJU’S has raised a total of $344 million in funding over eight rounds including this one. Prior to this, the startup had raised $40 million from Tencent Holdings.

In May this year, Byju’s claimed that it is one of the few India-based billion-dollar startups that has become profitable. The startup posted revenue of more than Rs 100 crore ($1 billion) that pushed the edtech firm to revise its annual revenue guidance to Rs 1,400 crore. The startup posted revenue of Rs 45 crore in 2014-15, Rs 110 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 240 crore in 2016-17.

The startup has also made few acquisition in short period of time. In July this year, Byju's acquired of Bengaluru-based Math Adventures, a math learning startup, for undisclosed amount. Prior to this, in 2017, it has acquired
TutorVista.com and Vidyartha (SPAN Thoughtworks Pvt. Ltd.), both based out of Bengaluru.

BYJU's is backed by investors such as Tencent, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), Belgian family office Verlinvest and the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation.

PE Firm General Atlantic In Talks for Zomato Stake

As per speculations, US based private equity major General Atlantic is in talk to get substantial minority stake in Gurgaon based online food & restaurant discovery platform Zomato.com. General Atlantic LLC is a global growth equity investment firm partnering with entrepreneurs and management teams and providing capital for large minority and majority stakes.

As speculated earlier also, Zomato is willing to raise $200 million, via private equity firms like Tybourne Capital Management and Steadview Capital along with its existing investors Info Edge and Sequoia Capital.

General Atlantic is looking to invest up to $100 million (Rs 600 crore) even as Zomato's existing investors, Sequoia Capital and Info Edge, have put in a rival bid which values it at $400 million (Rs 2,400 crore). Info Edge is an early backer of the Gurgaon based company which still owns 50% of stakes in it.

General Atlantic is chasing India's internet commerce sector after having famously pulled out of a funding deal with Flipkart more than three years ago.

General Atlantic has approximately $17 billion in assets under management and has more than 200 employees based in 11 cities across the globe including Mumbai in India. Founded in 1980, General Atlantic is the 7th largest private equity firm in the world, with approximately $16.6 billion of capital raised over the preceding five-year period.

Zomato and other Indian startups are now attracting growth capital from bulge-bracket private equity firms, signalling the fervent interest of investors in consumer-facing internet companies.

As per sources, a third bidder is also lining up to pick up a stake valuing Zomato at $800 million, bringing the startup closer to the elite billion dollar club of Indian startups.

There are two competing bids; either General Atlantic does it or Sequoia and Info Edge go through and make the investment. It could also veer towards the third potential investor which has shown interest recently.