After internet companies like MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip.com and Shaadi.com, which have directly or indirectly expressed intentions of going public in 2009, here is another large consumer internet play that plans to go public next year. The local information/classifieds and e-commerce portal Sulekha.com is preparing to enter the capital market sometime in 2009, according to a report in Business Standard.
The company is expected to rake in revenues of $30 million by then, which is good enough for an internet company to harbour listing ambitions. It’s not clear where Sulekha will look at listing - in India or in the US.
The company started its operation in 2001 in the US as a blog and then diversified itself into other areas of classified and yellow page services. The company plans to establish city-specific services across 40 tier-II, III types of cities including Mysore, Coimbatore, Trichy, Chandigarh, Indore, Surat and Vijayawada. Presently, Sulekha.com offers city-specific services in eight cities in India, apart from 14 cities in the US and one city in Canada.
Sulekha is backed by Norwest Venture Partners, which invested $10 million the company in October 2006. Prior to that, it received $4 million from Indigo Monsoon Group in 2001.
Info Edge is the first internet company to list in India -in 2006. Prior to that, a few years ago, Rediff and Sify listed on NASDAQ. The other internet companies mulling an IPO in 2009 are: travel portal MakeMyTrip, People Interactive Group, which owns internet properties like Shaadi.com, Fropper.com and the newly launched makaan.com, and Cleartrip Travel Services, and probably Yatra.com too.

Posted on 03/25/08, 1:22 PM
in: Capital Markets
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