Monday, August 14, 2006BharatMatrimony.com gets $8.6m funding from Canaan, Yahoo
Canaan Partners, an international venture capital firm, announced the funding of BharatMatrimony Group. This is a new investment by the venture firm's India office, which opened in June. Canaan is an investor in an $8.6 million round financing that also includes Yahoo! Inc. The investment will also be used to enhance the entire portfolio of services of BharatMatrimony Group and take them to leadership positions in their respective sectors. The other group businesses of BharatMatrimony include ClickJobs.com, IndiaProperty.com, IndiaAutomobile.com and IndiaList.com
"The investment underscores Canaan's ongoing commitment to early-stage Internet-related deals in India," said Deepak Kamra, a Canaan general partner. "Canaan was the first investor in Match.com in the United States in 1995, the first dating service in the United States." Match.com had revenues of $250 million in 2005. Canaan was also an early investor in DoubleClick, a pioneer in Internet banner advertising. "Canaan Partners was there in the early days of social networking on the Internet with Match.com, and we're capitalizing on the same kind of opportunity today in India," Kamra added. "India has a huge population of 1.1 billion, and the most important thing there is love and marriage. We saw pretty much the same thing at Match.com and we're seeing it again at BharatMatrimony." Alok Mittal, executive director of Canaan's Indian office, noted that BharatMatrimony portals will be supported by offices in nearly 40 Indian cities with personal computers linked to the Internet. "Dating is not a widely accepted custom for most Indians," Mittal said. "But marriage is extremely important, and we want to help as many brides and grooms get together as possible." Families will still have enormous sway in the ultimate selection of marriage partners, Mittal said, and parents are very involved in the whole process. The portal makes money through monthly subscription charges of $10 to $15 a month. Most users subscribe for three to six months. |
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