INDIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Raj Ramachandran, Varun Sriram, Krutamana Pisipati, Aadhitya Logeshen and Abheejit V, JSA
JSA 18th Floor, SKAV 909 No. 9/1, Residency Rd Richmond Town, Bengaluru Karnataka 560025 India Tel: +91 80 4350 3600 Email: raj.ramachandran@jsalaw.com varun.sriram@jsalaw.com Web: www.jsalaw.com
1. Market Trends 1.1 Technology M&A Market
In 2025, India saw a rise in the number of unicorns, mostly in the tech space. This includes Ai.tech, Navi Technologies, Rapido, Netradyne, Jumbotail, Darwin- box, Moneyview, Juspay, Drools, Vivriti Capital, and Veritas Finance. Few tech companies have under- taken initial public offerings in 2025, with the notable listings being Aditya Infotech, which raised USD151 million, and LG Electronics, which reportedly raised USD1.3 billion. Notable reasons for the uptick in this financial year (2025-26) have been: • the Indian government’s focus on the technology sector in its budget for FY 2025-26, allocating USD1.25 billion to artificial intelligence (AI) devel- opment; • changes in the Indian Foreign Exchange Manage- ment (Non-Debt Investment Rules) 2019 and the further clarifications issued by RBI in their Master Directions referred to in 6.3 Consideration and Minimum Price , especially in relation to cross- border share swaps between resident and non- resident parties; • pursuant to the amendments to the Companies (Compromises, Arrangements, and Amalgama- tions) Rules, 2016 due to which companies are permitted to proceed with a cross-border merger once approval from the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) is obtained, instead of approaching the National Company Law Tribunal, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) amended the aforemen- tioned rules to inter alia permit mergers between
With the uptick in 2024 and following the same trends, the first half of 2025 has seen an increase in deal value (versus the deal volumes). Despite global political and economic instability, deal values have increased while deal volumes have decreased. Across sectors, Indian deal values in the first half of 2025 have been reported to be approximately USD50 billion. Some of the most significant deals in the technology sector included New Mountain Capital’s majority stake acquisition in Access Healthcare Services, Altimetrik’s acquisition of SLK Software, a global technology services firm, and Kedaara Capital’s buyout of Impetus Technolo- gies. Quarter 3 of 2025 saw a 33% quarter-on-quarter increase in technology M&A deals. While detailed figures for the full technology sec- tor across the first three quarters of 2025 are still to be reported, the sector is estimated to account for roughly 40% or more of India’s total M&A deal value, reaffirming its dominant role in the market. A clear trend has been established wherein acquirers are prioritising value over volume, focusing on larger, strategically significant transactions in areas such as AI, enterprise SaaS, automation, and cloud-native infrastructure. Domestic acquisitions are on the rise as well, cross-border interest is returning after an initial dip in the year, and platform-driven technology assets are commanding valuation premiums.
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