New Delhi: Private equity investment in the country is set to touch $13.5 billion during this year, making India one of the top seven recipients of such funding in the world, a new study says.

Further, private equity funding is projected to be reach around $20 billion by 2010.

According to a study by research firm Evalueserve, currently there are more than 366 PE firms operating in India while another 69 are planning to start their operations soon. “In total, they seem to have amassed $48 billion earmarked for investment in India during the next three and a half years,” says the report.

Interestingly, investments made by private equity firms in India has seen a drastic rise touching $7.46 billion in 2006 from 299 deals, whereas the figure was just $20 million from five deals in 1996. In 2005, such investments stood at $2.18 billion from 146 deals.

“... if indeed, Indian companies end up receiving 20 billion dollars in such funding then this would represent a thousand-fold increase between the fourteen years of 1996 and 2010,” the report pointed out.

However, it must be noted that such investments had come down drastically during 2001-03 due to dotcom bubble burst.

Meanwhile, the total value of PE deals above each $10 million, stood at $4.97 billion dollars from 95 deals in the first half of 2007 while it was just $1.73 billion dollars (65 deals) for the year 2005.