Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of BharatMatrimony Group spoke to R Jai Krishna of CyberMedia News on the company's future strategy, after global giants in the online space – Yahoo and a silicon valley venture capital firm – Canaan Partners had picked up a minority stake and invested USD 8.65 million.

Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of BharatMatrimony, R Jai Krishna

What are the strengths of BharatMatrimony that made Yahoo and Canaan interested?

BharatMatrimony Group was the pioneer in online space from this part of the world. We were focused from day one on the matrimonial segment and only after we felt confident about ourselves did we did think of expansion into other verticals.

To give a snapshot of BharatMatrimony.com, it was in 1997 that we launched our matrimonial portal, and in July 2005, we thought that the people who do not have access to the Internet should also be benefited, that we launched a brick model of Bharat Matrimony Centers.

After attaining leadership position in matrimony, in August 2005, we launched online job portal - Clickjobs.com, as we saw a huge opportunity in the online job search space. And then on there was no looking back.

In September 2005, as a corporate social initiative we launched a online portal with complete database of blood donors in India, and thus was born BharatBloodbank.com This was followed by the launch of Indiaproperty.com, for the real estate space in November 2005, which we thought was the most underserved market. In March 2006, to integrate the existing sites and to cater to the other classified categories we launched Indialist.com, to be followed by a portal for the automobile segment called Indiaautomobile.com in July 2006, as research showed that most people do go online and find information about the vehicle they want to buy, when they decide to buy a vehicle.

All these strengths had convinced our investors that we were a focused and promising company, who have a lot of scope to grow, and thus in end July this year, we have received a funding by the global major and pioneer in the online medium – Yahoo and the Silicon Venture Capitalist – Canaan Partners.

Could you brief us about your investing partners – Yahoo and Canaan Partners?

Canaan Partners is a venture capital firm based out of the Silicon Valley in US. Founded in 1987, Canaan is in the 7th fund of $450 million. They have invested in 232 companies generation, and have handled in 60+ mergers and acquisitions, apart from 50+ IPOs. Canaan has a global presence in US, Israel and India. Their Investment Focus is in emerging and promising companies in the areas of Technology, Communications, Internet and Consumer Technology, Enterprise software and services, and Semiconductors.

Similarly, they also invest in companies in the Healthcare space such as Biopharmaceuticals, Diagnostics and Medical Devices. Their focus areas in India would be Internet and Wireless applications, Technologies for emerging markets, and Global productized services.

On the investment in BharatMatrimony, Alok Mittal, executive director-India of Canaan Partners, said, 'We are very excited to be an investor in BharatMatrimony. The company is very well positioned to grow rapidly and maintain its leadership in the Indian Internet landscape while continuing to be a highly valuable company from a social standpoint. The company's services truly change the lives of millions of Indians around the world. India is one of the key markets for Canaan Partners and we are looking at creating lasting partnerships in the technology space and generating shareholder wealth over the coming years.'

Canaan had earlier invested in a number of successful companies across the world such as aperto networks, match.com, e-stamp, E4e, Amicus Therapeutics, commerce one, I-print.com- the Internet I-print shop, qovia, saleslogix.com, bluefrog, apart from genaissance pharmaceuticals, picks pal, doubleclick.com, cmarket, northstar neuroscience, and cortina.

As for Yahoo, they do not require any introduction, as they have a leadership position in India and provide several strong offerings across communications, search and mobile segments. With picking up a minority stake in BharatMatrimony, Yahoo plans to further expand in India and their growth strategy is to build, buy and partner with our group's portals.

BharatMatrimony Group's strength in matrimonial and classifieds complements the offerings form Yahoo, which already provides in the Indian market. Upon completion of the investment, Yahoo! India and BharatMatrimony Group will cooperate through a business partnership.

Commenting on Yahoo's investment in BharatMatrimony, Susan Decker, chief financial officer, Yahoo! Inc. said, “India is one of the fastest growing Internet markets and our investment in BharatMatrimony furthers Yahoo's plans to extend our leading position in the country.” George Zacharias, managing director, Yahoo! India said, 'BharatMatrimony Group's strength in matrimonial and other services complements the strong offerings we already provide in the Indian market across communications, search, and mobile. On completion of the investment, Yahoo! India and BharatMatrimony Group will cooperate through a business partnership.'

The global knowledge, network and experience of the two investors will help scale BharatMatrimony business globally. Investments would also boost efforts to sustain leadership position in the matrimony sector. Similarly, enhancement of BM portfolio of services and climb to leadership positions in their respective areas of business, and exclusive channel partnership powering the matrimony and property services of Yahoo! With this we expect 30 percent increase traffic to the BharatMatrimony portals.

Could you detail us more on the Investment and what the venture capital be spent on, and also your growth strategy after the new development?

Yahoo and Canaan have picked up a minority stake in the company, by investing USD 8.65 million, which will drive and enhance the group's leadership position in Matrimony. The investment would also enhance the expansions of other businesses - Offline Centers, jobs, property, automobile and classifieds. With the new partners, BharatMatrimony would have the opportunity to go global in terms of marketing and advertising. We would increase our infrastructure by establishing more offices and spreading our network to other countries where our presence is not there now, especially in UK and other South East Asian markets.

We would also be doubling our manpower from the current to be doubled from the current base of 300 employees, apart from improving in technology. On the matrimonial front, which has been our core area, we would be opening another 300 Bharat Matrimony centers, within India and abroad in order to tap the global matrimony market. George Zacharias of Yahoo and Alok Mittal from Canaan Partners would join the Board of BharatMatrimony Group, which we hope that their expertise will add value to our company.

As Mittal was the one who pioneered the Indian online job space with his jobsahead.com, we strongly believe that we would be able to capitalize on the opportunity in the job market and aggressively market it to achieve top brand status in the online recruitment industry.

As online property market is nascent and completely underserved, the investments would give us the opportunity and monetise, on the still underserved market on the online space.

  Report sourced from www.ciol.com