The World’s Only Platform Connecting Investors and Companies: Researchbytes

"We realised value creation for an internet driven business depended heavily on active participation of its users and the ability to build on extensive domain knowledge" says Kapil Chopra, Founder, ResearchBytes.Kapil Chopra and Neeraj Gargi, the founding partners of Researchbytes (RB) are also promoters of Intelgain Technologies, an IT services firm with offices in Mumbai and Chandigarh that provides Financial Software solutions to clients across the world. Kapil Chopra, 35, is a business entrepreneur with more than 14 years of experience in the IT service industry.

Jubin Mehta from YourStory.in catches up with him to have a bite of ResearchBytes. Excerpts:

Tell us about Researchbytes

Researchbytes is the world’s only investor connect platform.

Researchbytes as a platform facilitates information exchange between corporate houses and analysts keeping them abreast of corporate events such as conference call dates, analyst meets, quarterly results and company announcements. The company also provides analysts, access to audio and text transcripts, annual reports, investor presentations and management interviews that help investors make informed decisions.

How is the platform useful?

Large corporates use the RB platform to build on their relationship with analysts through online collaboration on RB. This organized mode of communication helps Investor Relations channelize their efforts towards better productivity. Researchbytes provides impetus to under-tracked companies to reach out to Institutional Investors and HNIs through RB Roadshows. RB Roadshows empower management and company IRs to interact effectively with investors leading to increased analyst participation for their events and thus superior value recognition in the marketplace.

Give us a few numbers to further clarify the process

Of the 2900 actively traded companies in India, just 12% hold investor events. These 12% companies are covered by 90% of the analyst community. Just about 350 investor contact events were held in the previous results season.

We wanted to establish greater and organized connectivity between analysts and companies, particularly under-tracked companies. As a platform, such companies will greatly benefit as they will ensure smooth information flow across the investors thereby leading to greater interest and confidence among the investment community including HNIs and retail. Investor interest in these companies will greatly increase liquidity and reduce volatility of stock price.

How did the idea take root?Researchbytes was an idea germinating from an online annual reports library called Reportjunction.com managed by Intelgain. It was the experience of servicing the financial services sector with clients such as Deutsche Bank, HDFC Securities, Ventura, Renaissance Securities that brought about an idea to necessitate the need for such a platform and build on the domain expertise acquired.

The model evolved and within a short span of time we now have a self-sustaining platform that grows every day in terms of membership of top rung Investment professionals and also the repository of relevant documents which are collected.

What is your vision?

RB reaches out to over 3000 Investment professionals and boasts of membership of over 90% of Indian Fund Managers, Buy side and Sell side analysts from over 400 research houses. To put this in numbers: By end of 8 quarters, we’re looking to get atleast 30% of the companies and their IR to connect to the investor community through ResearchBytes.

90% of the analysts cover 10% of the companies. Researchbytes is an initiative to help bridge that gap and provide a platform to small and mid-cap companies to reach out a larger group of institutional investors.

How many companies has RB managed to cover?

RB managed to cover over 350 companies that conducted conference calls and analysts meets in the first quarter of this financial year and more than 95% of those events were notified by the members of RB.

With what motive was RB started?

The RB platform is an attempt to increase transparency in corporate governance by bringing together the Corporate and Investor community under one roof through effective sharing and dissemination of information across the investor community.

What is your revenue model?

We’re currently signing up companies to use the platform. We believe there is significant value add to corporates and IR Companies who have shown great interest in coming on board RB and paying us to use the platform in an effort to share and reach out to the Investment Fraternity.

The RB roadshow offers them this unique platform. Apart from that there are host of intelligence products and reports they would be paying to get access to design their IR strategy. We're looking to bring on board around 300 companies to participate on RB in the next 8 quarters.

Are you looking for funding at this point?

We have been approached for PE funding by some well known names. We are looking to raise funding for our foray into the Asia-Pacific region, the strategy execution for which is currently underway.

More about RB at http://researchbytes.com/