Intro

With the sales expected to total USD 26.29 trillion in 2019, the retail industry is defined as a way producers of goods and services deliver their products to the consumer. Different aspects of this field include online and offline retail, shopping and vending, and retail technology. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic impact and a significant reduction of the CAGR in 2020, the 2021 estimates predict the growth rate to be 10.5% (according to PR Newswire). Partially, such a rapid recovery is possible due to brand-new technologies and approaches extensively employed by many companies worldwide; for instance, in 2021-2022, 95% of purchases are expected to happen through the means of e-commerce. The largest share of the global retail market, approximately 35%, is possessed by the Asia Pacific region. In South Asia in particular, the last two years showed 20 rounds held in the retail field. This accounted for 6.3% of all early stage financing in this region over the mentioned period. The funding was provided by 13 active venture capitals and corporate investors that line up as follows according to the number of rounds they participated in:

South Asia: 13 Most Active Early Backers in Retail Industry
data provided by Unicorn Nest

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Key takeaways

  • Funds Geography - Mostly, the listed firms are hosted in India; Pakistan is another frequently appearing country of origin. The city of Mumbai, which is home to 4 VCs, is followed by New Delhi, Bangalore, and Lahore. The bulk of financing flows to the Indian startups; the United States and Pakistan are the runners-up to receive investments. The country of the most intense investment and the fund's establishments coincide in most cases.
  • Industry Focus - The highest priority for investments falls on Finance. Other fields to be considered for financing are Enterprise Software, Consumer, and Agriculture. Some of the examples are the US-based MilkRun, Indian Nivesh.com and Signzy, etc. 
  • Important Years - The most recent year of foundation is 2018. The oldest fund, Enam Holdings, started functioning in 1984. Primarily, the VCs were established at the beginning of the century, in 2000. The most significant number of deals was accomplished between 2007 and 2020. Certain firms performed the most intense deal-making in 2019.
  • Investments - Although sometimes the number of rounds ranges from 2 to 6, most funds stick to two rounds yearly. Spark Capital, which participated the most, has 425 deals accomplished, while Enam Holdings possess a minimum of 5 rounds. On average, the firms backed 116.7 projects; the median for this figure is 122.0. In terms of lead investments, the average and the median are 36.8 and 19.0, respectively. The most active lead among the presented funds is Sequoia Capital India, which led the financing 127 times; in contrast to that, some companies never acted as lead investors. Most frequently, the VCs chose to become leaders for 7 rounds. The difference between the two types of backing ranges from -28.26 to 29.0, averaging at -3.76. This index's median equals -11 percentage points. Therefore, some firms take the lead position in the deals less often than the other members on the list.
  • Typical Rounds - In most deals, the sampled VCs have 2-4 investors participating. The round size appears to be either less than 100 thousand or 5-10 million USD with almost equal frequencies. The highest portfolio companies multiplicator is single-digit and equals 3.04, while the most common one, according to the last known valuation, is 0.0. On average, this multiple reaches 0.6, having a median of 0.18.
Overall, the most active VCs in South Asia's Retail industry participate 2-6 times per year; the sectors of their focus are Finance, Consumer, Enterprise Software, and Gamification. Twelve of the 13 top funds are based in India, and only one comes from Pakistan.