Suvidhaa Raises USD 7 Million Series B Funding to Fuel Growth

IFC Leads Round with Participation from Existing Investors Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Reliance Venture Asset Management Ltd.

Mumbai, August 18, 2010: Suvidhaa Infoserve Pvt. Ltd., the pioneer of the Services Commerce (“S-Commerce”) revolution in India, announced today the completion of a USD 7 million second round of funding. The round was led by new investor, IFC, and returning global investors, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Reliance Venture Asset Management Ltd. Suvidhaa will use the new capital to further enhance its technology platform, broaden its portfolio of consumer service offerings and aggressively expand its market presence in neighborhood stores pan India. The company was established in 2007, promoted by Mr. Paresh Rajde, and was initially seed funded by Mr. Shapoor Pallonji Mistry.

In a span of two years, Suvidhaa has established more than 25,000 neighborhood stores called ‘Suvidhaa Points’ across India. Suvidhaa makes it possible for consumers to walk into these local stores and purchase every day “services” they need such as air, railway and bus tickets, mobile recharges, insurance payments, utility bill payments, loan origination, hotel packages, movie ticketing and a wide variety of other services. Suvidhaa has grown its presence in 20 states and throughout 500 cities / towns across urban and rural India. The Suvidhaa Points consists of Kirana Stores / Mobile Stores / Medical Stores / STD Booths / Cyber Cafes / Travel Agents / Insurance Agents and many other categories of neighborhood stores.

“Suvidhaa has proven that it can successfully bring valuable services to the doorstep of today’s Indian consumer. The company’s rapid growth is also boosting employment throughout the region and infusing substantial capital into the Indian service sector,” said Andi Dervishi, who leads IFC’s investment in the electronic payment industry. “Suvidhaa offers a unique and successful collection and payment business model that works for India, store owners are continually reaping a steady source of supplementary income by adopting the Suvidhaa platform. We view Suvidhaa as a promising investment opportunity that is perfectly aligned with IFC’s mission to foster sustainable economic growth in developing countries, increase revenue opportunities for small business owners and grow E-Commerce through catalyzing adoption of electronic payments.”

Suvidhaa’s proprietary technology platform seamlessly integrates neighborhood stores to various Services Provider’s systems, enabling consumers to purchase their service of choice at any time, across any sector, and at a single-window access point in a unique click-and-mortar set-up. Suvidhaa has developed strong relationships with top Indian corporates to deliver these services. For example, consumers can obtain services provided by leading companies including IRCTC for railway ticketing, all major airlines such as Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Air India, SpiceJet, GoAir and IndiGo for airline ticketing, telecom services purchases from such leaders as Vodafone, Airtel, BSNL, Reliance, Idea, Aircel,Tata Docomo,Tata and MTNL, bus ticketing from more than 400 bus operators covering 7000+ routes, multiplexes such as Fun Cinema, leading financial services and insurance players such as, LIC, ICICI Prudential ,HDFC Standard Life, Metlife, ING Vysya, Birla SunLife and others. Suvidhaa also supports bill payment for utility companies in areas such as electricity, gas, telephones and mobile. Other services include education, filing of tax returns, e-Pooja services, credit card services and more.

“When NVP invested in Suvidhaa less than two years ago, we were extremely impressed with the company’s vision and business model, and we believed it could deliver a high performance, cost saving services platform that Indian consumers would be passionate about,” said Niren Shah, ManagingDirector, NVP India. “Suvidhaa is delivering on this vision as it has scaled from 1,300 outlets to more than 25,000 outlets in less than two years. This is an increase of about 20x, with solid revenues to prove it. We are excited about Suvidhaa’s rapid growth and we look forward to working with the team to continue addressing consumers’ needs related to convenience and accessibility of services.”

“Suvidhaa offers a truly differentiated, technology-driven business model that delivers maximum benefits to end consumers,” said Harshal Shah, CEO,Reliance Venture Asset Management Limited. “This additional infusion of funds is a testament to the fact that there is a growing passion around the services and purchasing experience offered by the Suvidhaa’s powerful electronic distribution platform. Suvidhaa’s rapid customer adoption in the last two years and growing roster of service provider partners is extremely impressive, and we are confident that the company is poised for continued growth in the years ahead.”

Mr. Paresh Rajde, Founder and CEO, Suvidhaa Infoserve noted, “We are thrilled to add IFC to our strategic group of investors as we expand our market presence and take Suvidhaa to the next level. Our company has grown rapidly in the last two years due to strong consumer adoption and our ability to add new and relevant services to the mix that Suvidhaa customers have requested. We look forward to using this latest round of capital to broaden our portfolio of service offerings and further strengthen our leadership position in this growing market.”

About Suvidhaa Infoserve Pvt Ltd (SIPL)

Suvidhaa Infoserve Pvt. Ltd. is a company floated to aggregate, commoditize and distribute multiple services under one roof in the most convenient form to consumers. The motto of the company is to give convenience and value to all its customers who are looking for travel services (such as railway tickets, air, bus, and hotel), utility bill payments, telecom products, entertainment, education, financial services (including insurance, loans, investments and e-Governance) and lifestyle related services. Suvidhaa’s business expertise aims to address the prevailing gaps in various service sectors in India. The company has developed a technology platform to deliver these services giving consumers higher performance, enormous time and cost savings and increased customer satisfaction.

Suvidhaa currently powers more than 25,000 local neighborhood convenience stores spread across 20 states in over 500 cities/ towns. The Suvidhaa Point consists of Kirana Store /Mobile Store / Medicals Store / STD Booth / Cyber Cafe / Travel agent and other categories of neighborhood stores. The main premise of Suvidhaa’s platform is to bring convenience to customers near their homes. Suvidhaa is headquartered in Mumbai, with branch offices in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, and Kolkata.