Komli’s primary aim of raising this round was to build up its Digital Media Network and the Audience Measurement unit. In December, Magna Global projected India’s online ad spending to grow about 28 percent this year. The Asia Pacific region in general is also expected to experience continued growth this year, so Komli is well-positioned to capitalize on that.

Last summer, Komli bought Australian online rep firm PostClick as it continued to expand its reach across the Asia Pacific region

But Komli, isn’t just focused on its backyard. In October, it acquired Indoor Media, a UK-based firm helping clients market to ethnic minorities. Release

Related

• Indian Ad Net Komli Buying Ethnic Minority Marketer Indoor Media
• India Ad Net Komli Buys PostClick
• Ad Service Komli Raises $7 Million First Round From Nexus India, DFJ And Helion Ventures

Last summer, Ybrant bought ancient search engine and portal operator Lycos from South Korea’s Daum Communications for $36 million. While Lycos has been all but forgotten in the west, it said had some meaningful business in parts of Asia. While that was considered one of Ybrant’s biggest acquisitions, it has made a number of smaller ones in South America and Europe, as well as its home country.

Oak India Investments, an affiliate of Oak Investment Partners, was involved in the new financing round; joined by current investors, Asia Pacific Capital, as well as the ICICI Bank. Release

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• Daum Sells Lycos To Ybrant For $36 Million
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The round was led by Foundation Capital, reports peHUB. Also participating was its existing investors Storm Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Big Basin Ventures.

The company said it will use the money to support MobileIron’s expansion. MobileIron was founded in 2007 and also has offices in the Netherlands, as well as Hyderabad, India. It raised $9 million in August 2009.

The company says it will use the cash in part to pursue opportunities in Japan, China, Korea and India, where it says there is an untapped market for live streaming video. There are lots of other players in the live broadcasting space, but Ustream is the biggest player, with about 50 million unique users a month (By contrast, Justin.tv says it has about 41 million unique users, while Livestream says it has about 17 million).

With the new funding, Ustream will also now have a big funding lead over its competitors. In total, it will have now raised more than $86 million, including $11.1 million in a first round from Doll Capital Management and Band of Angels in April 2008. Even more cash could be coming, since the company says “additional funding commitments are pending.”

USTREAM SECURES $75 MILLION SERIES B FUNDING FROM SOFTBANK

New Funding to Fuel Ustream Growth in the U.S. and Asia Pacific

Mountain View, Calif. – February 1, 2010 – Ustream, the leader in live streaming to Internet and mobile devices, today announced a $75 million Series B funding round lead by SOFTBANK of Japan, one of Asia’s largest internet and telecom companies with a large mobile presence.  Additional funding commitments are pending from other investors in the U.S. and Asia. The funding will help fuel Ustream’s growth in the U.S. and Asia Pacific, specifically to pursue opportunities in Asia in Japan, China, Korea and India.

“Asia offers a significant, untapped market opportunity for streaming video,” said John Ham, Ustream founder and CEO. “SOFTBANK will enable us to develop this opportunity and deliver on our vision of live streaming video everywhere. We look forward to deploying these resources to accelerate our growth in the United States and Asia Pacific.”

The live streaming market is rapidly growing. More than 3.4 million viewers watched the live red carpet pre-show of the American Music Awards in 2009 and more than 3.8 million watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama via Ustream in January 2009.

Ustream delivers some of the most popular live streaming video programming, delivering premium and celebrity-powered events in partnership with leading media companies.  The company had the first live streaming application for the iPhone available in Apple’s App Store.  Its iPhone applications have been downloaded more than 1.5 million times.

Ustream’s one-to-many live streaming encourages broadcast-to-viewer and viewer-to-viewer interaction, empowering a much more engaging experience for everyone involved. Users can interact during events using Ustream’s Social Stream, which enables real-time dialogue through Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and AIM integrations.

“Since DCM’s lead investment in the Series A, we’ve worked closely with Ustream’s founders to execute upon its vision to build the company into a truly global media company,” said Gen Isayama, DCM general partner and member of the Ustream board of directors.  “SOFTBANK’s involvement and financial support will be instrumental in enabling the company to connect live venues and viewers anywhere in the world through any internet-connected device.”

Asia presents a very unique environment to foster a live streaming platform service like Ustream, specifically because of advancements in infrastructure, better mobile 3G penetration versus the U.S., and a rapidly growing base of internet users.

About Ustream
Ustream is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size.  In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster by creating their own channel on Ustream or by broadcasting through their own site, empowering them to engage with their audience and further build their brand. Visit Ustream.com to start a broadcast now or learn more about broadcasting.  Ustream’s Shiba Inu Puppy Cam, seen by more than 15 million viewers worldwide, was listed as one of 2008’s top 10 Web videos (Source: Associated Press).  Ustream powered more than 3.8 million streams during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration.

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• Live Broadcaster Ustream Raises $11.1 Million First Round
• How Livestream Upstaged Justin.tv With Its New Video Streaming Service On Twitter
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The fourth round of capital was led by Globespan Capital Partners; existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners also participated. To date, the company has raised $37 million. SMS GupShup will rely on advertising from brands such as Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Puma, Cadbury and others, to bring the company to profitability this year. The money will be used to expand into the Philippines and Indonesia, and to grow the organization to 150 employees by adding another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and sales.

Imere is a software platform that enables mobile and Internet applications to sense the location of their users and optimize services accordingly. On mobile, Imere’s technology can sense location even on a phone without GPS. On the Internet, location sensing is done by Imere without being entirely dependent on IP addresses. Imere uses Cell-ID, Wi-Fi, GPS, IP addresses and proprietary algorithms in its technologies. Together, they enable delivery of best in class location accuracy, the company claims.

“Location-awareness in applications is critical for hyper-local search and local advertising besides many evolving social networking and enterprise applications. Imere’s technology is very cost effective in delivering location awareness,” Rediff chairman Ajit Balakrishnan said in a statement. Rediff will use Imere’s technology in its applications.

Ver Se focuses on mobile classifieds in verticals such as jobs, matrimonials and real estate. The company had received seed capital from OnMobile Global Ltd and also has an international distribution partnership with that company.

OnMobile CEO Arvind Rao and Rishi Navani, co–founder & MD of Matrix India, will join the board of Ver se Innovation. Ver se stands to benefit immensely from the experience of OnMobile and Matrix Partners India.” said Virendra Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Ver se Innovation Pvt. Ltd.

Matrix Partners has invested in local search site Asklaila and classifieds site Quikr, apart from FIITJEE and ITZ Cash Cards recently.

The TV18 scrip was trading flat on the Bombay Stock Exchange on a volatile trading day.

In January, Web18 said it has filed for an IPO on Nasdaq. Web18 CEO Surya Mantha told contentSutra that this investment has no bearing on any previously announced plans. “There is no change in Web18’s business plans, everything is on track” he said.

Mantha said this is a strategic investment in Web18 as a full portfolio business both on Internet and mobile. “A big mobile play was anyway on the cards for us and it’s good to have Nokia, a global leader in mobility, on board with us,” he said.

Nokia Growth Partners has $350 million under management and invests in growth stage companies in the mobile industry, a press statement said.

Web18’s Internet properties include In.com, Moneycontrol.com, CricketNext.com and IBNLive.com.

Related

• UPDATE: Web18 Files For IPO On Nasdaq; Q-o-Q Drop In Net Loss

Mahesh Tutorials and Career Launcher are other firms that have raised VC money in the past. In 2007, Helix Investments made a $12 million investment in Mahesh Tutorials and CareerLauncher raised money from Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Capital and Gaja Capital Partners, according to VCCircle.

The education sector—virtual and offline—has been attracting investments from strategic and financial investors. Pearson (NYSE: PSO) Plc. recently invested $30 million in forming a JV with Educomp and picking up a stake in TutorVista.

A Mint story that laid down the investments in the education space.

Pearson also said it has acquired a 17.2% stake in TutorVista, the Bangalore-based online tutoring and test prep company, becoming its largest shareholder. Pearson will appoint Peter Cohen, CEO of Pearson Education’s US School Curriculum Group, to the board of TutorVista. Pearson’s investment is part of third-round funding for the company and existing investors Manipal Education and Medical Group and Lightspeed Venture Partners have also participated in this round, the company said in a statement. VCCircle reported that Pearson has paid $12.5 million for the stake, valuing TutorVista at $72.6 million. Launched in November 2005, TutorVista has already raised $18 million in venture capital funding. Pearson said it sees opportunities to offer online tutoring services as a companion for its many technology-based learning products. TutorVista’s core market is the US, where it provides K-12, college and grad-school level training in subjects such as English, Math, Physics and Science. It also has presence in the UK and a small unit in South Korea.

“We have great respect for the expertise, capabilities and innovation that Educomp and TutorVista have brought to the education market. We are enthusiastic about being their partners, because we see India not only as a big growth market in itself, but also as a place for us to build businesses that will be relevant across the world,” Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino said in a statement.

Indian consumers spend an estimated $50 billion every year on private educational institutions and services, Pearson said, outlining the opportunity the company was gearing up to tap. This is in addition to the $30 billion invested by the government each year in the education sector. 

Digital cutbacks, mobile future: You won’t find many newspaper or magazine editors or publishers admit they are cutting back on digital innovation spend, but that’s exactly what Purie is doing: “I have a revolutionary view: I said we’re not going to spend any money on this digital business because I don’t see any money coming in right away and I want to monetise things.” Away from PC-based viewing, Purie sees the real potential in mobile: “There are around 320 million mobile phones in India and we add 10 million every month. That for us is the future.”

Time travelling: Asked about the future for India Today, Purie said he wasn’t, but he stressed the need to continue to invest in editorial content both in print and online. “We’re fortunate in India—the problem we have right now is a short-term problem and it will be resolved. And the advantage of being in a developing country is that you can go to the future and come back; I can see what’s happening in developed countries and imagine it will happen to us.”

Digitally dumb: Purie says he goes on fact finding missions to the west, but he was less than complimentary about the prevailing media business models: “The digital model that is being followed in developed countries is a pretty dumb model. You have… one monopolist newsstand like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) who is giving your content out free and then competing in selling digital advertising. Where is the business model in this?” He said that unless a paid content model could be found, publishers are “all spending money, spending dollars to chase cents”. But Purie has the advantage of time: “I hope that this model is sorted out in the West and by the time it comes to us we have it all up and running.”

The company’s business model involves signing up colleges for an annual fee. Then various companies looking to recruit pay CoCubes on a per campus basis. The company is also looking to reach out to colleges tier-2/3 cities. The company has been co-founded by Harpreet Grover, who was with management consultancy firm Inductis and Vibhor Goyal, previously with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Research Centre.

CoCubes reduces cost of companies and helps them reach out to a larger audience. Some of the companies recruiting through CoCubes are Evaluserve, SRF, Motilal Oswal, Thinklabs, etc.
Balijepalli and Raghu Batta, partner at Ojas, have joined the board of CoCubes. Other investors in the company include Amanjeet Saluja (Vice President - Ocwen Financial Solutions), Nikesh Shah (Business Manager, Europe – Infosys BPO) and Rajiv Raghunandan (Practise Lead - Infosys), as per its website.

Ojas Ventures, a $35 million fund, has till now invested mainly companies serving the mobile & telecommunications segment. It has invested in Tyfone Inc (mobile payment/banking co), Ziva Software (engaged in products and services in the mobile search domain), Telibrahma (mobile digital media company), etc.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle.com.

The company may be looking to expand within the media business by launching a TV channel. The details are not known. When contacted by VCCircle, Atul Phadnis, Founder, WOIML, declined to comment.

The company was founded in 2005 by Atul Phadnis, who had earlier worked with media agency Rediffusion-DY&R, Mindshare, Starcom and TAM Media. It was originally set up as Aarohan Media Software Pvt Ltd. The company received its first funding from financial services advisory firm Wealth First Advisors in October 2006.

Between August and September 2008, Sequoia Capital and Nexus India Capital made their undisclosed investments in the company. While Sequoia invested through Sequoia Capital India Investments Holdings III, Nexus participated in the funding through Nexus India Ventures I.

Among other investors in WOIML include Julie Peterson who was earlier with STAR TV in Hong Kong besides and ITV/GranadaMedia in the UK. She is a partner in the firm with around 9.34% stake.

WOIML’s key business area is EPG and runs one of India’s largest multi-platform, multi-device consumer search & guidance service for TV video content. It has designed a proprietary, indigenous India-specific EPG production platform that integrates programming information from hundreds of TV channels. The platform reaches consumers through set-top-boxes, online and mobile routes.

It has clients from both media platforms such as IPTV, DTH and cable (names like Big TV, WWIL, Hathway) besides the TV channels themselves including Star, Sony (NYSE: SNE), Zee, MTV, Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Times Now, UTV, Discovery (NSDQ: DISAB), 9X etc.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle.

Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) Ventures, the venture capital arm of wireless technologies and data solutions firm Qualcomm Inc, has invested $9 million in CE Infosystems, reports PTI (Via Economic Times). For Delhi-based CE Infosystems, which is better known as digital maps and navigation services provider MapMyIndia, this is the third round of venture capital funding. It had earlier raised funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Sherpalo Ventures and Nexus India Capital, who have also participated in this round.

MapMyIndia provides services and solutions based on geographic information systems and location-based business intelligence. It provides its services through handheld devices, mobile phones and automobiles. MapMyIndia also plans to leverage Qualcomm’s technology to strengthen its services. The company is also looking at overseas expansion now.

Another funded player in this space is Hyderabad-based SatNav Technologies, which raised $7 million from Sequoia Capital India last year.

Qualcomm Ventures’ earlier investments in India include $3 million in Kirusa, a Mumbai-based voice SMS company, and Tessolve Services Pvt Ltd., a provider of solutions for semiconductor testing, packaging and failure analysis.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle

Bangalore-based HealthcareMagic is a medical consultation and referral portal which allows users to interact live with doctors. It currently has around 50 employees, which include 34 doctors. While some of these doctors are full time employees, others are consultants on contract.  The company earns its revenues through medical consultations. The interaction can be done either through internet or through mobile phones.

While payment for online consultations is done through credit cards, for mobile phone HeatlhcareMagic has signed up deals with network operators. The mobile phone consultations are done at charge of Rs 8-10 per minute, said Sinha. HealthcareMagic has tied up with five operators - Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Aircel, BPL Mobile and Tata Teleservices, while only BPL is live currently.

The company was providing its services free of cost for 10 months between January and October ‘08. “We would be cash flow positive in next 3-4 months,” said Sinha. It has clocked more than half a million medical interactions since its launch.

Sinha expects usage to rise up once the agreements with operators are active. “When we signed up with BPL, there was a surge in mobile calls by more than 8-10%,” adds Sinha.

It has also signed up with insurers like ICICI Lombard and Bajaj Allianz, under which policyholders can consult as part of their policy.

Expansion Plans

HealthcareMagic plans to invest the funds on technical infrastructure, which involves expansion of internet servers, call centre, call recording etc. The company also plans to expand sales and marketing and invest in operations.

This is the second venture of Sinha, an IIT Kanpur graduate. Sinha had earlier started Techunified, a software product firm, which was sold to Sarabhai Group firm ORG Informatics in 2007.

Accel India, which was known as Erasmic Venture Funds before merging with US-based venture capital firm Accel Partners last year, is investing out of its recently closed $60 million fund

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle

ValueFirst Messaging, a Delhi-based mobile messaging services provider, has raised series B funding of $6 million from venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). In 2006, the company raised its first round of funding of $250,000 from Emergic Ventures of Rajesh Jain.

ValueFirst plans to increase its workforce by double from the current 200, and enhance its presence in 35 cities in India. ValueFirst also has plans for international expansion, especially in East Africa and Middle East.

Ben Mathias, Executive Director of NEA India Pvt Ltd, will join the company’s board.

The company claims to have more than 1,300 corporate clients such as ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered, Bajaj Allianz, HCL, Nicholas Piramal, Nortel, Proctor & Gamble, among others. The company also has two subsidiaries, SpotOn (media mobile ad network) and ValueFirst Connect (mobility solutions provider). Part of the funding will also go into these subsidiaries.

ValueFirst plans to expand its client base to more than 10,000 customers, and reach revenues of Rs 100 crore in the coming fiscal year, a company spokesperson said.

“NEA’s direct investments in India are primarily in mid-to-late-stage projects,” said Ben Mathias, Executive Director of NEA India Pvt Ltd, said in a release. NEA also runs an affiliate fund in India, Vindo Dham promoted NEA IndoUS Ventures, which invests in early to mid-stage companies.

The mobile value added services (VAS) space is still active in the deal space. Chandigarh-based Altruist Group recently acquired venture capital backed VAS player Mobile2Win. Two other VAS companies, mCarbon and One97 Communications, also recently raised funding from Canaan Partners and Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Capital, respectively. Mobile media company Affle recently sold a 20% stake to Microsoft.

NEA has also backed another company - low cost computing startup Novatium - where Rajesh Jain has made the first investment.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle

Besides, the VCs and promoters will continue to hold a 10% stake in M2W post the deal, Anuj Aggarwal, co-founder and director of Altruist, told VCCircle. The venture capital investors of Mobile2Win will not be investing any additional money into Altruist. Mobile2Win MD and CEO Rajat Jain will join the Altruist Group board.

The deal will also make Altruist-M2W combination one of the largest VAS players in India. While Mobile2Win has revenues of Rs 35 crore, Altruist Group, which is a voice and web-based VAS provider, has revenues of Rs 165 crore.

Nexus India Capital and Norwest Venture Partners had invested $15 million in Mobile2Win in 2006. The company had also raised funding from Softbank China and Silicon Valley Bank. Nexus India also bought the stake in Mobile2Win from Rupert Murdoch promoted eVentures, which was one of the earliest investors in Mobile2Win.

“We have complementary strengths and skills across the mobile ecosystem. This consolidation will deliver over 40% incremental value to our shareholders,” said Rajat Jain, MD & CEO of M2W. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to Mobile2Win for the transaction.

Altruist Group was formed in 2005 by brothers Dheeraj and Anuj Aggarwal and has 12 offices in India. There are “perfect synergies” between two companies as they work in the same domain but in different platforms, said Aggarwal. Also Mobile2Win has a presence with all the operators, which attracted Altruist to the deal.

The companies also specialise in different areas of VAS space. Mobile2Win has a strong exposure in mobile marketing, SMS and WAP. Altruist has a presence in voice-based VAS services. These are branded and marketed by operators like Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices and Idea Cellular, who are also Altruist’s clients.

Altruist also provides BPO services to its customers in telecom space, but this contributes to only 5-6% of its revenues. The new entity is targeting a 20% share of mobile VAS market in India and revenues of around Rs 350 crore in FY09. The VAS market is dominated by few large players like Bharti Telesoft, OnMobile, Spice group’s Cellebrum, and One97 Communications.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle

Singh, 27, has set up ScalArc Inc., a Delaware, US-incorporated consulting firm that will help web companies optimize infrastructure costs through open source solutions. The name is short for scalable architecture.

Singh seems to have tied up some kind of venture funding. “We are expecting our first round of funding to close soon,” Singh said, declining to give further details citing confidentiality reasons. The company will primarily target the US and India market, with offices in San Francisco and Mumbai, “but we have the ability to deliver our services remotely anywhere in the world,” Singh said.

Singh hopes to tap into the ongoing economic slowdown and companies’ need to cut costs wherever possible. “Some 30-35% of costs for a large web operation is in licensing costs for software. We can help them eliminate that by deploying open source software,” Singh said. As for the timing, he says: “there is no better time to start an open-source solutions company than now. Everybody wants to prune costs.” The company, Singh said, has extensive pricing information on vendors of data centres and other infrastructure that it can use in advising clients.

Singh joined TV18 as executive editor, technology, in January 2006. He moved to Web18 when it was set up as a separate entity and was designated chief technology officer in June 2007. Since then, and this is the reason we are covering Singh’s move closely, he has been instrumental in setting up the impressive portfolio of destination websites Web18 today has, such as ibnlive.com, cricketnext.com, bookmyshow.com, yatra.com, tech2.com, jobstreet.com, indiwo.com, buzz18.com and the jewel in the crown, the aggregator In.com. He led the acquisition of design firm Urban Eye, giving Web18 properties a design edge, relatively superior user interface and navigational ease. Network18 has been able to hive off Web18 and create enough value to file for a Nasdaq listing in two years, and Singh seems to have played no small role in it. “My firm will be a consultant for Web18, so i’m not entirely going away in that sense,” Singh said.

In December, internet giant Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) acquired a 30 percent stake in Chennai-based Network Management (Inmac), which owns the telephone-based directory search service Call Ezee. The leaders in this space are JustDial and Infomedia Group’s Yellow Pages, while there are newer entrants like AskLaila of Four Interactive and Guruji.com.

The local information and classifieds space is well-funded now with SAIF Partners and Tiger Funds backing JustDial, Sequoia Capital backing Guruji and TV18 Group buying out Infomedia Group.

Though GETIT primarily has a print presence, it is now also offering digital services. According to the release, it currently publishes yellow pages, buying guides and business directories in over 35 cities. GETIT’s services are also available online, on WAP and through its 24x7 telephone information services across India. Rahul Chandra, Director at Helion Venture, will be joining the board of GETIT.

Chandra said in a release: “Helion is very interested in this market and our investment will be directed towards expanding GETIT’s service offerings across multi-access channels.”

GETIT Infoservices was established in 1986 and claims to bring out over 2 million directories which include Yellow Pages / buying guides, industrial guides and business listing directories.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle

Apnapaisa Pvt Ltd, the company which owns financial intermediary portals Apnaloan.com and Apnainsurance.com, has raised an undisclosed investment in its second round of funding from JAFCO Asia and the existing investor Sequoia Capital.

Sequoia had invested $2.2 million in Apnaloan in early 2007. Apnaloan, founded in 2000, is one of the oldest portals in this business. It initially had backers like Rediff.com (NSDQ: REDF), ING Vysya Bank, SIDBI Venture, Jumpstartup Venture Fund, FMO and Edelweiss Capital, while many of them have exited already.

In 2007, Sequoia Capital backed company founder Harshvardhan Roongta for a management buyout of Apnapaisa. Sequoia reportedly invested $2.2 million in the company then.

The loan origination market (including insurance products) is estimated at about Rs 1,500 crore currently. As for loans, the lead generation commission could be anywhere between 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent, while for health and auto insurance products it could be 5 per cent.

Apnapaisa offers services like a price comparison of products such as health insurance, term life, critical illness, home loans, personal loans, loan against property, business loan, plot loans, car loans, education loans and credit cards.

Besides Apnaloan, there are companies like LoanRaja.com (launched by Helion and DFJ-funded Komli), Deal4Loans.com (non-VC funded) and LoanWala.com (Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and Canaan-funded BharatMatrimony) in this space.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle.