Growth in Naukri to improve marginally in H2FY14: Info Edge

Internet company Info Edge recently invested another Rs 10 crore in Meritnation.com, an online education and assessment service. With this round of funding Meritnation.com has received a total of Rs 71.5 crore from Info Edge for a 55.81 percent stake.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18 about thae latest happenings in the company and the road ahead, MD & CEO Hitesh Oberoi said that more than Rs 60 crore has been invested in Meritnation.com and as of now it has no plans to make big investment in any other start-up.  Info Edge had invested Rs 30 crore in the company in February this year.

Info Edge also owns job portal naukri.com and has seen a slight improvement in naukri’s performance in the last few months. Going ahead, he expects growth in naukri to improve marginally in the second half of this financial year.

Meanwhile, its real estate portal 99acres.com, which contributes 15-17 percent to total revenues, has been consistently growing 50 percent in last two years.

Shares of Info Edge have soared 50 percent in the last three months and 30 percent on year-to-date basis.

Also Read: Info Edge eyes realty sector growth to sustain 17% margins

Below is the edited transcript of Hitesh Oberoi’s interview with CNBC-TV18

Q: We do understand that you increased your stake recently in Meritnation with an investment of around Rs 10 crore. Can you just give us details on whether you would be looking for additional funding into Meritnation? What would it possibly be valued at at this point in time? What would the possible prospects be in terms of financials for that particular website?

A: Meritnation is a company we invested in a few years back. It is an e-learning company. It basically has online software for children in school, it is in the K12 space. It has been doing well for the last two-three years. We have invested more than Rs 60 crore in this business. We have slightly upped our investment in this company and upped our stake in this company recently. The company is still very small and time will tell whether it succeeds.

Q: Are you planning to invest in any of your other investee companies in the next few months?

A: I cannot say right now. What tends to happen with these start-ups is that they work towards a plan and as is always the case with start-ups sometimes they come under, sometimes they do well, so depending on a case to case basis, we look at these investments. Yes, there is nothing big which is on the horizon at any point in time, but periodically we do get opportunities to up our stake in some of these companies. If they are doing well then we would like to take that opportunity.

Q: Could you tell us that has the valuation of Meritnation been externally assessed and where it stands at?

A: The valuation is not public as yet. It is not a very, very high valuation. It is a start-up and it is only now beginning to scale. The amount of money we invested recently is almost small. It is just Rs 10 crore. We have put in about Rs 60-70 crore in the business till date. We own about 50 percent of the company.

Q: What is the prospect on Naukri.com at this point in time? How is business doing on Naukri at this point and do you see any uptick? Most of the brokerages are expecting FY15 to be better than this current fiscal?

A: There is a slight improvement in the last few months. It has got to do more with the IT sector picking up. Anecdotally, when we speak to our sales team the market is still slow, most companies are still struggling, especially pieces that move the index of the domestic economy are not doing so well. Sectors like insurance, telecom, construction, infrastructure, real estate still seem to be in doldrums. What has started picking up for us are small and medium enterprises and sectors, which are externally focused like IT companies. They seemed to be reviving a bit and that is helping our business.