{"id":45540,"date":"2024-05-08T01:10:39","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T01:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/08\/softbank-back-at-deal-counter-with-icertis-deal-talks\/"},"modified":"2024-05-08T01:10:39","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T01:10:39","slug":"softbank-back-at-deal-counter-with-icertis-deal-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/08\/softbank-back-at-deal-counter-with-icertis-deal-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank back at deal counter with Icertis deal talks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SoftBank<\/div>


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SoftBank<\/a>, one of the largest technology investors, is looking to return to the deal counter in India after largely focusing on exits from listed bets last year.The Tokyo-based investment firm has begun early-stage talks to double down on existing software portfolio firm<\/a> Icertis, which is stitching up a new funding round<\/a> of about $150 million (about Rs 1,252 crore), in a secondary share sale, said people familiar with the development.<\/p>\n
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The talks would progress depending on valuation to a large extent, they said.<\/p>\n

The new funding round<\/a> may see other existing backers also invest more in Icertis<\/a>, they said, as some early shareholders are looking to make an exit from the 15-year-old firm.<\/p>\n

Icertis was last valued at $5 billion.<\/p>\n

SoftBank\u2019s Vision Fund<\/a> has also finalised plans for investing in ecommerce firm<\/a> Meesho as part of a broader funding round. With several unicorns under its portfolio, the Japanese investor is actively reviewing potential new firms as well after a lull of more than a year \u2013 when SoftBank and Tiger Global<\/a> didn\u2019t make any deals.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe talks are in early stages and the key to the deal would be the valuation and the price discovery is yet to be finalised,\u201d said one of the persons, who did not wish to be identified.Queries emailed to Icertis founder Samir Bordas did not elicit a response till press time.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for SoftBank India declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n

Icertis, which provides contract management services to enterprise clients, in February said it hit annual recurring revenue of $250 million. The company said at the time that 30% of its clients are Fortune 100 companies and 70% of its customers have more than $1 billion in revenue.<\/p>\n

The company has so far raised about $447 million, including debt and secondary share sale, Icertis has as per data from Tracxn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The latest deal talks<\/a> come at a time when valuations for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies to their revenue multiples are getting readjusted, ET had reported on May 2.<\/a> Healthcare SaaS firm Innovaccer<\/a> is in talks to raise $200-250 million in funding as well but at a flat valuation.<\/p>\n

Big ticket investors like SoftBank largely stayed away from making new bets across the globe as the private venture market turned cautious. SoftBank, which made aggressive bets in terms of valuations at the peak of the 2021 funding cycle, has also been seeking rationalisation in valuation from existing and potential new portfolio firms.<\/p>\n

Last year, Sumer Juneja, managing partner, India & EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) at SoftBank Investment Advisers, had said that late-stage Indian startups with adequate capital were not ready to readjust valuations<\/a> and were still sticking to 2021 valuations, unlike their global counterparts which had undertaken significant cuts.<\/p>\n

SoftBank, which has funded almost a fifth of India\u2019s 100-plus unicorns, has invested $11 billion in the country through its Vision Fund along with another $ 4 billion from the group, including in non-tech sectors.<\/p>\n

ET reported in January that SoftBank had made just under $2 billion<\/a> through exits from startups that went public during 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Across a series of late-stage consumer and software firms, new deals are being planned and a potential return of SoftBank in big ticket deals assumes significance. Tiger Global \u2013 which has also stayed away from making new bets \u2013 is likely to invest a small amount in Meesho\u2019s funding round.<\/p>\n

ET reported on March 8 that Meesho is closing a new funding round of around $200-300 million from Peak XV Partners <\/a> and Tiger Global. However, the financing round is now likely to be bigger and may close in tranches. The new funding would be used for Meesho\u2019s plans to move its domicile to India, accounting for taxes, and giving exit to early investors.<\/p>\n

In a secondary share sale, existing investors sell their shares to new investors and therefore the proceeds do not go to the company\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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SoftBank, one of the largest technology investors, is looking to return to the deal counter in India after largely focusing on exits from listed bets last year.The Tokyo-based investment firm has begun early-stage talks to double down on existing software portfolio firm Icertis, which is stitching up a new funding round of about $150 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/88591548.cms","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[29624,2294,46499,46496,11884,46498,46492,42821,8962,7137,46495,5796,46497,7139,46494,66,21546,31764,46493],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45542,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45540\/revisions\/45542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}