The Hindu : Business : Yahoo!, Canaan invest $8.65 m in BharatMatrimony

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 03, 2006

Business

Business

Yahoo!, Canaan invest $8.65 m in BharatMatrimony

Staff Correspondent

MUMBAI: Yahoo! Inc. and Canaan Partners, an early stage venture investor in innovative technology companies, have announced that they have invested $8.65 million in BharatMatrimony.com Pvt. Ltd., the leading matrimony service provider with 7.5 million registered members. Both investors will be represented on the board of the company.

M. Janakiraman, CEO, BharatMatrimony group, said the infused capital would be used to further sustain the company's leadership position in the matrimony sector. "The investment will also be used to enhance our portfolio of services and take them to leadership positions in their respective sectors.''

Expansion plans

The BharatMatrimony group plans to significantly expand its presence on-ground and will invest in the global personals space.

The BharatMatrimony portal offers content in six Indian languages and the company plans to offer content in two more languages soon.

As part of its expansion programme, it expects to double the headcount to 700 by the end of this year.

The company also proposes to increase the number of BharatMatrimony centres, its offline initiative, from 38 to over 300 across the country by 2008.

It plans to open offices in the U.K. and in key Southeast Asian markets to cater to the Indian diaspora and open up religion/country based matrimony portals.

Alok Mittal, Executive Director (India), Canaan Partners, will represent Canaan Partners on the board of BharatMatrimony. He was the founding managing director of the job portal, JobsAhead.com.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business