Despite almost similar number of deals, Private Equity-Venture Capital (PE-VC) investments dropped nearly 3x year-on-year in terms of value in January 2026. The value of PE-VC investments in January 2026 stood at $1.49 billion across 104 deals as against $3.99 billion investments across 105 deals in January of 2024, as per data from Venture Intelligence.
The drop in investments were driven by a sharp decrease in the mega deals (over $100 million) with only three such deals this month compared to eleven in the same month last year.
On a sequential basis, however, the value of investments were down marginally from $1.8 billion in December 2025 across 78 deals.
Arun Natarajan, Founder, Venture Intelligence, said that the fact that highly experienced international investors like Warburg Pincus have chosen to strike two deals in a month are indicative of the increasingly competitive nature of the Indian market.
The largest deal in the month was the $133 million that Non Banking Finance Company (NBFC) Avanse Financial Services raised through a rights issue from Warburg Pincus, Kedaara Capital and Mubadala Investment. Fleur Hotels’ $106 million raise from hospitality major Lemon Tree Hotels, and agri logistics firm Arya Collateral raising $80 million, were other major deals.
As for the timeline of investments, investments in early-stage companies stood at $341 million in investments across 57 deals while growth stage investments went down to $234 million. Late stage investments also went down to $747 million from $1.4 billion.
The average early stage deal size doubled to $6 million as against $3 million in January 2025. For growth stage it went down significantly to $9 million($24 million) and late stage saw a similar drop to $37 million ($111 million).
In terms of the investment outlook, Natarajan added that with the favorable funding push for deeptech R&D and AI, the Union Government has set a positive foundation for private investors to build confidently upon in the new year.
Published on February 2, 2026
