Education sector to see $200 m PE, VC funding in ’11:Report

The total deal size or investment in this sector is expected to touch $200 million in 2011 as compared with $183 million in 2010, said a report done by Venture Intelligence, which provides data and analysis on PE/VC and M&A activity in India. Of the $93 million investments into this sector so far, the R100 crore or about $22 million investment in vocational training and placement firm Teamlease Services is considered to be a big one. PE investments in the education sector increased from $129 million in 2009 to $183 million in 2010.

Some of the large deals in the sector include Premji Invest's $43 million investment in Manipal Education and India Equity Partners' $37 million investment in IL&FS Education and Technology Services, DE Shaw's $31 million investments into e-learning company Excel-Soft Technologies and Navi's Capital's $24 million investments into ITM Group, said the report.According to the report, the education sector is the largest services market in India with a market size of more than 450 million students and $57 billion per annum (as of 2009).

The landscape is primarily dominated by central and state governments funded and managed institutions with 80% of all schools being government schools. The government currently spends about 4% of the GDP on education, which has been increased to 6% to R270,000 crore from R43,500 crore a few years ago.

The education industry in India

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