Year 2023 was a period when winter finally set in the Indian deal street, after the previous twelve months witnessed the ‘winter-is-coming’ syndrome among rainmakers. This was despite the public markets opening themselves to new companies like never before - the total number of IPOs hit a new high, propelled by record number of SMEs knocking on the doors of the junior exchanges.
Your trusted deals publication VCCircle itself added a new stripe with our coverage now extending to a few other emerging markets, in particular the Middle East, Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.
You can check our international coverage here and we shall soon offer custom pages for our readers from MENA and other market for easier access to relevant content that is not available in other publications, backed by a resource sitting right in the middle of all the action in Dubai.
Meanwhile, our local team of reporters continue to deliver what we believe helps our readers to be the best informed when it comes to deals (‘If it’s happening or has happened, you will find it on VCCircle’). That said, some stories stood out.
Here’s chronicling what were among the most-read stories on our site.
The most read story during the year was our news break on Byju’s facing a new tussle with Blackstone and founding Chaudhry family over test prep firm Aakash Education. While all publications (VCCircle included!) were under the fear-of-missing-out or FOMO to cover the next lapse of governance, disclosure norms, financial dues, sackings and more at Byju’s, the firm was facing a new challenge at Aakash, what was its biggest buy and trophy asset.
Readers also lapped up our breaks on two directors quitting Aakash’s board and its public market investors knocking down the valuation of the company to pull down the tag of India’s first decacorn.
A particularly large set of stories that found hungry eyes were exit transactions by various investors including harvests by Brookfield, Tiger Global, SoftBank, Investcorp, Blume Ventures, Warburg Pincus, Convergent, General Atlantic, TPG, Temasek, Peak XV and others.
Among new transactions, the most clicked was the proposed deal where Kotak and Motilal Oswal Alternates were to invest in VVDN. This deal was eventually scrapped with only the existing backer chipping in, as the firm is now attracting a strategic investor (more only on VCCircle for our Pro customers!)
Meanwhile, our news breaks on former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit sewing big-ticket India-linked tech deal; Nasdaq-listed Applied Materials’ set to strike India deal with a PE-backed company, also hooked our readers.
Our deep dive on the latest financials of one of India’s biggest unicorns, Zetwerk, under our Spotlight series, where we look at the good, bad and the ugly of PE/VC backed private companies' past, present and the future (you can catch all that action here), also got readers interested.
Some more long-form features and other insightful articles that attracted eyeballs include our piece on an IIT Madras grad who has gone to become the most prolific VC in African continent in a matter of few years; IPO conundrum of Aakash Education, how Info Edge's startup bets are shaping up and the call for forensic audit for multiple VCs backed InStoried.
In people-related stories, readers were attracted to our coverage of top tier movements and leadership shuffle at KKR, mass movement at KPMG, Apax Partners, Apollo Global, Carlyle and Lightbox Partners going separate ways.
Overall, we were glad to see almost all of our most-read pieces belonged to our ‘Premium’ content and increasingly our ‘Pro-exclusives’.
Indeed, our subscription page (if you are not already a part of the ‘premium’ content service you may join us here) was the second most visited on our website (behind the home page). We thank all those who joined the service in 2023 but also those who have been consuming our premium content for several years now.
Like every year we hope you would also gain some insights from the 360-degree coverage of the deals ecosystem in India with our annual year-end special coverage (you may access the entire story bouquet here).
Last but not the least, a very happy new year as we move into 2024 and strive to bring more value-added curated content that you shall find nowhere else. Indeed, more content on the site will be reserved for Premium subscribers and going forward for our Pro customers, making it a more compelling proposition for our most-valued readers.
Happy dealmaking!