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Sulekha.com receives $10mn Funding From Norwest Venture Partners

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

Nov 1, 2006 6:10 AM ET
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Posted In: E-Commerce, Classifieds Business, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital

  • Ajit chatterjee

    I just took a look at www.cal4all.com and it sure is a great site.  Thanks Amarendra for suggesting it.  At last we have someone who understands users.

    www.cal4all. is indeed the best… All the best Cal4all.

  • Suresh Ramaswamy

    Yes indeed…...... I have visited www.cal4all.com and what a whiff of Fresh air.  It provides me everything that I go to internet for…...... local services information, classifieds, movies, events….

    Cal4all is the best… Thanks for suggesting it…...

  • www.Cal4all.com is the best local information service.  Cal4all is a complete local guide for all your shopping, business, and recreational needs. One-stop destination for all your local information needs like local business search, online classifieds, and events. Comprehensive business directory with updated information on all local B2B and B2C Products and Services.

    www.Cal4all.com is the best local search service for consumers to find local businesses and interact with each other for the broadest range of needs, across all major cities in India.

    www.cal4all.com puts all Local Information on Your Fingertips

  • Hi,

    The site is terrible indeed.  They don’t respect the user and they have popups and ads.  The layout is all cluttered.  And for each category, it opens a separate website!!. Too crappy!!!

    There is something missing with all these local search wannabe yelps. Just dial is fooling small businesses by giving the same lead to tens of businesses, promising one year of leads and delivering only for three months, etc.

    So long JD, and thanks for all the fish…......

    Burrp has only information about restaurants, the UI of Ask Laila sucks (They don’t need 10 million $ to come up with a good UI with a consistent, commonsensical navigation and look & feel). People go to local search sites to get information about their daily needs too like hardware shops, local marts.

    And they push too much information on users right on the homepage itself. And on every page, the user is given information or options like forms to fill before s/he asks for it.

    And one wannabe says that they have the best content. Their gold-medallist content writer visits every restaurant in town(s) and writes an essay that’s called editorial review and passes a verdict. It can’t get more funny, can it? Grow up folks!

    I have seen a site, http://www.cal4all.com and did I like it!! It does not push anything on the user. It empowers visitors to choose and go wherever they wish to. It does not force any forms down the throats of visitors. It is a relief to look at the homepage and all the inside pages. I am sure that cal4all will beat all these wannabes and cry babies to dust.

    It respects the user and leaves the choice with the user. It is commonsensical folks! Now grow up all the other local search wannabees. And investors, see that they don’t run away with your money….

    http://www.Cal4all.com clearly avoids these traps.

    At last we have someone who understands the users. Way to go Cal4all……

  • santosh

    the site is terrible. Typical of desi websites where they dont respect the visitor. the site is mostly a clutter and you forget why landed on this page from the search engine results! that says it all.

  • no it in nascent stage it will be good after some time

    regards
    palak
    www.abcprocure.com

  • no it in nascent stage it will be good after some time

  • no it good website just need some update and modification

    regards
    www.tendertiger.com
    prasad

  • no it good website just need some update and modification

  • Sulekha, should scrap their CPC network too and start adding adsense to get any revenue,
    They should first do a R&D before launching any new products and sould do further research in their AD network

  • postal portal

    Yes Anil, it has its fingers in many pies but is that a good thing or a bad thing? I have followed this site for some time, they take initiatives and then dont execute properly to the extent that some of the initiatives die prematurely. They started a matrimonial service that lasted less than 6 months, very recently. Since there was some traction in real estate, they started a real estate website but I dont see anything happening there.
    Anyway, maybe they needed money to pull all these stunts and maybe we see something worthwhile. All in all, its fuelling the online space.

  • I agree with everyone that Sulekha isnt a user friendly site and not at all on the Web 2.0 platform. But at the same time they have their fingers in many pies and have recently made an ad network too which will server CPC ads across Sulekha's online properties (and maybe have a publisher network too).

  • postal portal

    I am surprised with this development. Sulekha has no value offering, and is a very poor quality site. I guess the VC are also getting pressurised now….

  • rm

    there are much better sites to sulekha…web 2.0 is all about users, but sulekha took them users for granted and pumps out tons of ads on the face of user…crappiest site i ever visited

    i like http://www.mouthshut.com, http://www.desihub.com etc. which are upcoming with better UI

  • Chrisopher

    Hey Jay…that means they are like The Times Of India News Paper…..very healthy in revenue.

    Keech

  • Jay

    Its one of the crap site with full of popups I have ever seen ....

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