Norwest Venture Partners has invested $10 mn in one of the oldest Indian community portals - Sulekha.com (according to this release). The funding will be used for business development and for offering new services both online and on mobile. Sulekha has blogs, social networking, classifieds, events, yellow pages, among other services. This is Sulekha’s first institutional round of funding. Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners has joined Sulekha’s board of directors.
Given the amount of money chasing Web 2.0 (I define it as the participatory business model) in India, I suppose Sulekha was bound to get funded. I never found Sulekha very usable (what with all the popups they had and the banners they still do), but they do have a dedicated userbase. Traction, as they call it, is critical to funding, as was repeated often at TiEcon Delhi 2006.
Related:
- $80mn Eyes Social Net In India; Any Local Language Social Net Sites Around?
- Sulekha Adds Ahmedabad To Its List Of Online Yellow Pages
- Sulekha.com Plans Travel Portal; Expands To Dubai, S’pore, London
- Sulekha.com Launches Yellow Pages On Mobile Phones