The private equity deals seems to have taken off looking at current positive economic indicators and even Local search space seems to be attracting lot of VC action. In a follow up Sequoia capital has invested Rs.40 Crores in Just Dial, online and offline based Local search company. VCCircle reports that the investment would be through secondary means and constitutes less than 10 per cent stake valuing the company in upwards of Rs. 400+ crores.
Just Dial earlier acquired funding from SAIF Partners in 2006 and hedge fund Tiger Global in 2007. Sequoia Capital recently invested in Cyber cafe advertising company–Ideacts. In December last fiscal, Yahoo had acquired a 30% stake in telephone-directory search service Call Ezee.
Just Dial had revenues of Rs 91 crore in FY09, and expects to reach Rs 130 crore this year. Just Dial currently serves to more than 25 million unique users and over 200 million searches in a year. The other competitors in online local search market includes Asklaila, Onyomo including Google Local.
Just Dial earns money by way of sponsored results. It Introduced pay-per-lead and many other monetization models targeting small business owners. Its bouquet of services is vast as it caters to online audience as well as provide offline services through helpline facility.
The recent deals in venture industry speaks of Indian based flavors returning to deal table. The VC in particular wants to invest in companies best suitable to gain from domestic opportunities.
Matrix Partners and Intel Capital invests Rs 50 crore in Itz Cash:
Itz Cash, a company providing cash card facility in India has begged Rs 50 crores in second round of funding majorly from its existing investors Matrix Partners India and Intel Capital. The funding shows the growth perspective and renewed interest of VC in financial and payment related services in India.
ItzCash belongs to Subhash Chandra owned Essel Group and has an estimated turnover of Rs 1,700 crores. The company earlier received $10 million funding in 2007.
ItzCash provides cashless payment solutions by prepaid cards for individuals and businesses across physical, Internet and mobile channels thus providing an alternative to cash payment. Other companies in alternative payment gateways include Paymate, NGpay.
The need for alternative payment gateways despite increasing usages of debit and credit cards is due to the lack in reach of banking channel in India as RBI recently conveyed that 60% of India’s population does not have access to formal financial service and that only 5.2% of villages have bank branches.
Jusdial customer service is very poor. This guys told they will give unlimited leads for one year. But just three months are over and they stoped giving leads to me saying that my account has been exhausted. When I call up these guys and complaint them that they will get back to me with solution. I am calling them almost everyday last one month..every time they say they will get back and they never got back to me..The sales guys who have taken the order from me does not pick my call. I am really tired of calling these guys….I had plan of upgrading my account….now I have dropped it…because they are cheating me……