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Jerry Yang To Step Down As Soon As Yahoo Board Finds Replacement
Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang will step down from his post as soon as the board finds a suitable replacement, and BoomTown broke the story. The official release from Yahoo is out.
Kara also has his full memo to the Yahoo team, in which Yang says he'll participate in the search for his successor. Once the new CEO is in place, Yang will go back to his role as Chief Yahoo—and he will retain his seat on the board. Full story on paidContent.org…
More coverage—including our poll—on Jerry Yang stepping down:
-- Poll: Who Should Be the Choice For Yahoo CEO Position?
-- Yahoo CEO Search: Some Possible Names: Miller, Chernin, Freston, Rosensweig and Others
-- Yahoo React: Analysts Expect Board To Get Aggressive On MSFT, AOL Deal
-- Yahoo CEO Search: Obama-Like Immediate Priorities
-- Yahoo And Yang's Greatest Hits: History In Links
Our streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. Click here to download.
Infibeam Acquires Photo Printing Portal Picsquare
Picsquare CEO Manish Agrawal has confirmed the deal with Ahmedabad-based Infibeam to VCCircle.
Bangalore based photo printing portal Picsqure has been sold to Indian online retail firm Infibeam. Picsquare CEO Manish Agrawal has confirmed the deal to VCCircle. He, however, refused to divulge the financial details nor commented whether it was a cash or stock deal.
VCCircle was the first to report about the deal betweem Infibeam and Picsquare on Monday. The Bangalore-based Picsquare will now be a subsidiary of Infibeam and will continue to operate as a stand alone website. Also Agrawal refused to comment if the current investors are exiting the company. Agrawal and his co-founder Kartik Jain will continue their present roles in Picsquare.
Agrawal said that the deal has nothing to do with the slowdown and Picsquare continues to grow. "We thought this is a good opportunity to work togetther and make something big in this space," said Agrawal. Picsquare now plans to add more features to the website, expand it's product selection and team. There are synergies between Picsquare and Infibeam in terms of knowledge sharing and customers.
Previous story posted on Monday (17/11/08): The economic slowdown seems to have started having an impact on India's web 2.0 startups. Bangalore-based online photo printing company Picsquare is believed to be in advanced stages of talks to sell to online retail firm Infibeam. When contacted by VCCircle, Manish Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of Picsquare, neither confirmed nor denied the development to VCCircle. "It will be too early to comment on this development," he later called to say.
Picsquare, besides offering services like printing photos, also personalised mugs, t-shirts, mousepads, calendars etc. Formed in 2005, it has a total user base of 2 lakh and a team of 11 people.
In 2006, Picsquare raised $75,000 from three angel investors - Sanjay Swami, CEO of mCheck, Shripati Acharya, founder of Snapfish and Vijay Iyer, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Silver Creek Systems Inc. Then, in August this year, it also roped in a strategic partner, Bhola Digital Lab, an offline photo printing company. The company is currently in the growth stage and is expanding its operations.
Ahmedabad-based Infibeam sells products via internet, which includes new and used automobiles, mobiles and accessories, books, cameras, watches, gifts, toys and home appliances. It's founder and CEO is Vishal Mehta.
This is not the first M&A in this space. Earlier this year Hewlett & Packard-owned online photo printing site Snapfish.com acquired an Indian online photo printing website MeraSnap.com.
There are a lot of players in online photo printing space, and quite a few have raised funding. One of the oldest photo portals is ZoomIn, which is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. Printo is another one to receive funding from Sequoia Capital and Seed Fund. Banglore-based Canvera raised Series A funding in May this year from Footprint Ventures, DFJ and others. There are also other players like eYaadien and Photomasti.
Then personalised merchandising firms such as Myntra and eYantra also overlap this field as they also personalised merchandises.
This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle
Check out the best business jobs in digital media. Go here for paidContent.org Job Board.
Accel India's Prakash: 'We Are Yet To See Slowdown In Business Plans We Receive'
Prashant Prakash, Partner, Accel India, says only very high quality biz plans will get funded now.
Accel India, the new avtar of Erasmic Venture Fund, the Bangalore-based early and seed stage fund, recently closed their second fund with a corpus of $60 million. Erasmic earlier managed about $10 million and usually invested sub-$1 million in very eary stage companies. VCCircle's Shrija Agrawal caught up with Prashanth Prakash, Partner, Accel India, in an email interview post the fund closing announcement.
Your fund has swelled from $10 million or so earlier to $60 million now. What new can we expect from Accel Partners now? There will be a continued emphasis on the seed and early stage space as in our earlier fund. What will be new is our ability to leverage Accel's global platform: e.g., Accel's information network and worldwide network of relationships with key individuals, customers and market-leading companies. These networks and Accel's global brand will give our portfolio companies superior credibility and attractiveness in the marketplace, resulting in recruiting advantages, accelerated sales cycles with key customers, and enhanced ability to strike strategic deals with industry-leading companies.
What is the time horizon for investing this capital? Four years.
Arent you happy that you raised the fund at the nick of time? By the time crisis became worse you were already home with fund. Accel enjoys association with some of the very best LPs around the world. More than timing it illustrates the strong backing Accel's India initiative has received from our LPs in very turbulent financial times.
In the current economic climate, what kind of deals do you expect in early and seed stage? We expect to see more startups that will target consumer and business opportunities for the domestic markets which at this point are relatively more stable and still growing. These will be across many high-growth sectors and not limited to tech products or services.
Don't you think an economic slowdown affects entrepreneurship or new ideas? People will usually be skeptical about leaving their secure job and starting up especially when you need staying power to tide over the crisis. Historically some of the best innovations and ideas have come during economic down cycles. We are yet to see any slowdown in the number of business plans that we receive. That said, the bar for funding in these times will definitely be higher, we can expect only the highest quality teams and ideas to attract venture funding.
What is your advice to the startups you have funded so far on tiding over the current market slump? You have funded a few social media companies where the business models are not clear yet. They have a long, long way to go to see a revenue stream. While there is much talk today on cash conservation, we have always emphasised the need to be capital efficient sometimes even at the cost of growth. Most of our companies are close to cash breakeven and a few are already very profitable. More specifically, our internet companies have focused very sharply on building revenue models that work in the Indian context, and several of them are in sight of being cash breakeven.
Do you see a shift in your investment strategy? We do not expect any significant shift in our investment strategy.
What are your learnings from the Indian market in the last few years of your operation? We have worked with more than 20 seed and early stage companies over the last few years. Our experiences suggest the following:
-- Staged infusion of capital is the most efficient and beneficial to all parties in the long run
-- A number of founding teams do not have prior company building experience, and, thus far, it has been hard to acquire senior management talent from outside
-- Active involvement is required from us, particularly for the first 12-18 months post fundin
-- Companies need support for strategic & operational help; and key contacts for sales or partnerships
This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle
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Check out the best business jobs in digital media. Go here for paidContent.org Job Board.
Accel India Closes $60M Second Fund For Seed, Early Stage
There will be no significant shift in the investment strategy for the new fund.
While there are almost all the funds targeting the late stage, growth capital investing and even PIPE ( private investments in public equity) investing, here is a VC fund which has raised capital to do seed and early stage investing. Accel India, formerly known as Erasmic Partners has closed a new $60 million seed and early stage fund.
Accel believes that seed and early stage markets continue to be under served in India, attracting less than 5% of the total venture capital funds. There will not be a significant shift in the investment strategy of Accel, and it will continue with their highly engaged model to venture building. Accel India's portfolio of companies includes DoveTail, HolidayIQ, Inbiopro, Kaati Zone, Kirusa, MuSigma, Myntra, Perfint, Sconce and Virident.
"Accel India is pleased to have gained the support of our industry's elite investors," said Peter Wagner, Partner at Accel Partners. "The Accel India team is already functioning as a key element of our Accel global network, to the benefit of talented, passionate entrepreneurs in India and around the world."
"We have seen a significant increase in entrepreneurial activity in the last few years; many are first time entrepreneurs who find significant value in our team's experience in hands-on company building beyond just the cash investment" said Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel India.
Accel India is managed by four partners: Mahendran Balachandran, Gagan Kumar, Subrata Mitra and Prashanth Prakash.
This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle
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M & A Star Buys Majority In Asianet; Forms JV With Rajeev Chandrasekhar
Star's acquisition of majority stake in Asianet shows the importance of growing South Indian media.
Asianet Communications Ltd (ACL), Malayalam's first entertainment television company, has finally landed in the hands of Rupert Murdoch's Star TV. Star will take a majority stake in a joint venture company with Asianet's current owner Rajeev Chandrasekhar's Jupiter Entertainment Ventures which will hold the TV company. The new JV will be called Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Ltd (Star Jupiter). The deal , however, does not include the news business. The financial terms of the deal are not available.
Chandrasekhar, the former telecom entrepreneur, bought ACL in late 2006 via his investment firm Jupiter Entertainment Ventures. It's not clear how much stake the original founders and promoters like Raji Menon will hold in the new joint venture. Menon holds about 26% stake.
ACL broadcasts channels in Malayalam (Asianet, Asianet Plus), Kannada (Suvarna), and Telugu (Sitara). The new JV, Star Jupiter, will also make additional investments for launching new channels in South India.Vijay, the Tamil language general entertainment channel currently operated and owned by Star, will come under Star Jupiter, according to a report in Indiantelevision.com.
"We will be holding at least 51 per cent and the deal is restricted to the TV entertainment business. The news business doesn't make sense for us as regulation allows only 26 per cent foreign direct investment," Star India CEO Uday Shankar has been quoted as saying by Indiantelevision..
Asianet Communications includes news channels (Asianet News in Malayalam, Suvarna News in Kannada), and entertainment businesses like (movies and television, FM radio, and digital media). They have plans to launch news channels in Tamil and Telugu in December this year.
News Corp (NYSE: NWS). chairman Rupert Murdoch had said during his visit to India that the company would be investing $100 million for six regional channels.
Star's acquisition of Asianet Communications shows the importance of South Indian media growth story. According to Star CEO Paul Aiello, the deal is a game changing one for Star.
Peepul Capital has backed a regional media company based in Hyderabad called Associated Broadcasting Company Pvt Ltd.
This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle
Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. Visit the ContentNext Reports page
Top Headlines Of The Week From paidContent.org, mocoNews And paidContent:UK
Top headlines of the week from paidContent.org, mocoNews.net and paidContentUK:
paidContent.org:
-- Interview: Vivian Schiller, President & CEO, National Public Radio: NPR Can Solve Hyperlocal
-- Time Inc Releases Details Of Consumer Marketing And Sales Reorg, More On Digital; 92 Laid Off
-- Lifetime Buys S. Korean Dress-Up Site Roiworld, Launches New Gaming Studio
-- Quadrangle Closing Faltering Media Hedge Fund; Losses Near 25 Percent
-- YouTube's New Bid To Boost Revenues: Sponsored Videos And A Live Performance
mocoNews:
-- Interview: Has Mobile Gaming Finally Turned The Corner? Gameloft's de Vallois Makes His Case
-- Verizon Wireless Search Deal: Microsoft Closing In On It; Guarantees May Cross $500M Mark
-- Earnings Call: Clearwire Gears Up For Q1 WiMax Launch; Looks At Using White Spaces
-- MediaFLO Expects To Nearly Double The Number Of Markets It Serves By Year-End 2009
-- Thumbplay Trims Headcount To Prepare For Prolonged Economic Downturn
-- Twitter Gets Message To Find Ways To Make Money In Tough Economic Times
paidContent:UK:
-- Highfield's Latest Leap: What's It Mean For Kangaroo, Microsoft?
-- BBC's Rose, Titus Get New Roles In Tweak To Digital Exec Line-Up
-- Earnings: Thomson Reuters Sees Strong Demand Despite Downturn, Sales Up In First Full Quarter
-- Virgin Media Cutting 2,200 Jobs To Save £120 Million; Not Caused By Economy
-- Lonely Planet To Share Ad Revenue With Amateur Travel Bloggers
Briefing notes from our research director Lauren Rich Fine are still available: Positive Bias: The Problem With the Latest Online Ad Forecasts | Online Fantasy Sports: Growth Outlook Intact
Our streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. Click here to download.
IMI Mobile Buying Digital Music Distributor DX3 For Euro Expansion
Hyderabad-based mobile-content distributor IMI Mobile is buying digital music distributor DX3 of London as a beachhead into European and non-mobile markets. The UK company distributes music to white-label platforms like that of UK broadcaster ITV (LSE: ITV) and handled mobile download marketing for EMI's pop band Alphabeat, but wants to branch out in to other content areas. IMI's delivery platform distributes to a range of tier-one networks, but is still limited to just mobile.
"It's very difficult for pure digital music providers to make money in the space," DX3 CEO Anu Shah told mocoNews.net. "DX3 has a lot of content relationships and online experience as well, we have been dual-play for many years now. As for us, IMI has a very strong technology platform, many cost-efficient data centers around the world, support and the product range that will enable DX3 to go from being just a digital music provider to connect with social network tools, mobile marketing tools, UGC tools..."
DX3 will be renamed "IMI" by January, will retain and grow its 15 staff in London and will also open a Zurich office to serve pan-European clients from mainland Europe, Shah said. And more acquisitions are on the way: "It's not the end of IMI Europe's aggressive expansion plans - we are actively looking at other organic and inorganic acquisitions in the next six months.
Shah said Europe is the "cutting edge of the market" and, accordingly, IMI will use DX3 for some product development. Migration of DX3's technical services to IMI is underway, the new IMI Europe will be unveiling new services in Q1 and Q2 next year and it's also hoping to power music services for ISPs Shah said it is talking with.
Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. Visit the ContentNext Reports page
DoCoMo Takes 26 Percent Stake in India's Tata Teleservices
In a major move and a first by a Japanese telco into India, NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) is taking a 26 percent stake in local telco giant Tata Teleservices, for a price of $2.7 billion. This is surely to spur more rivalry with other local giants like Reliance, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Airtel, and help DoCoMo expand beyond its sluggish home market as well as try and redo its disastrous forays in Europe and Asia earlier.
PTI: DoCoMo has been trying to enter the Indian market for some time. Tata Teleservices has also been trying to sell part of its stake for a while and it was in talks with South Korea Telecom two years ago, but the talks failed due to disagreement over price. Tata Teleservices has 30 million subscribers, making it the sixth-largest telecom company in India on that parameter.
FT: Analysts said that DoCoMo was paying a high price to get into India, however. "We're very bearish on this. Tata has been on the block for years and nearly everyone has kicked the tyres and walked away," said one, who asked not to be named in the story. He added that, at around $350 per subscriber before debt, DoCoMo was paying a substantial premium relative to IDEA Cellular, a comparable Indian network. DoCoMo defended the deal, saying that because of Tata's rapid growth, it expected to make a 15 percent return on investment over the next five to ten years.
Check out the best business jobs in digital media. Go here for paidContent.org Job Board.
Why The Apple iPhone Has Stumbled In India
The original iPhone generated a lot of interest in India, selling well on the grey market, so it went to reason that when the 3G version launched officially in the world's fastest growing wireless market, that it too would sell well. But apparently, that's not what happened, with sales of the iPhone 3G falling far short of Apple's own internal goals of moving 100,000 units by December 2009. Livemint.com reports that analysts tracking the Indian handset market estimate that half that number has been imported, with just a fraction—11,000 phones—sold so far. Given that every handset marker from the market leader Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to up and coming HTC have been anxious to capture the rapidly expanding Indian market, it seems odd that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) hasn't taken sales in the country more seriously.
So what hurt the iPhone 3G's uptake in India? For one, pricing was always going to be part of it. At $800, the gadget was without a doubt, expensive, especially considering a typical IT worker's annual salary ranges from $12,000-$24,000. But cost isn't the entire reason. As Livemint points out, Nokia's N96, Samsung's Omnia and BlackBerry Bold all cost even more than the iPhone. "Pricing communication" was a bigger reason. Indian consumers were well aware that the iPhone was selling in the US for $199, but Apple made no attempt to explain the sizable cost difference—that subsidizing handsets isn't common practice in the Indian market as it is in the US. Even worse, the phone was locked to the carrier, despite consumers being charged full price. Apple also left too much to its operator partners—Bharti Airtel and Vodafone—which didn't have the experience of aggressively selling handsets. They only sold the phones in their own stores, instead of branching out to the numerous retail phone outlets in India that sell 50 percent of all handsets. Marketing was another downfall. Again, it was left to Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Airtel, which didn't push the phone that hard, and certainly didn't position the iPhone as a "lifestyle" product, or make it seem "aspirational." (Apparently, selling the iPhone as a lifestyle product could have compensated for the fact that India doesn't yet have 3G networks, rendering the phone's 3G capabilities useless).
Nokia, meanwhile, will be happy to learn that Apple's strategy "was not to sell a million phones in India" and that "it only wanted to establish a presence in the country," as Airtel's CMO Sanjay Gupta told Livemint. Nokia dominates the Indian smartphone market, with research firm Gartner estimating they have an up to 70 percent share of it.
In a separate story, Reuters reports that India added a record 7.7 million mobile users in October to its GSM-based networks, according to the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI). Total GSM mobile users at the end of October numbered 241.4 million, up 3.3 percent from 233.7 million in September. The number does not include India's CDMA mobile users. At the end of September, number two network Reliance Communications, which is CDMA-based, had 56.1 million users.
Photo Credit: Kartihksn
Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. Visit the ContentNext Reports page
Top Headlines Of The Week From paidContent.org, mocoNews And paidContent:UK
Last week was our crazy conference week; now we have our crazy earnings week. Check out our earnings channel for Q3 results from News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, and many more.
Top headlines of the week from paidContent.org, mocoNews.net and paidContentUK:
paidContent.org:
-- Interview: Tom Staggs, CFO, Disney: $930M Digital Revs 'Slightly Less' Than Hoped, 'Still Pleased'
-- Interview: Jeff Dossett, SVP-U.S. Audience, Yahoo: His 'Next Mount Everest'
-- Ballmer: Yahoo Buyout Is Not Gonna Happen
-- Lauren Rich Fine: Saving Newspapers By Pushing Readers Online
-- Obama Begins Transition; Advisors Are Named For Tech And Communications Issues
-- Echostar-Owned Sling Launching Online Video Portal; Hoping For Multi-Screen Convergence
mocoNews:
-- Microsoft Trying To Shiv the Potential Google-Verizon Wireless Search Deal
-- Obama Used Mobile Advertising To Target Youth And Voters In Key Battleground States
-- FCC Approves White Space Use For Wireless Broadband
-- Nokia Slashes 600 Jobs; Targets Emerging Markets With Internet Services And New Handsets
-- Sprint Decides To Keep Nextel After Potential Deal Unravels
paidContent:UK:
-- Virgin Media Considers Content Divison Sell-Off To Become Comms Platform, Not Content Producer
-- EMI Music To Reorg; Divided Into Three Global Units; EMI.com's Limited Scope
-- Babelgum COO Leaves In Latest High-Level Shakeup
-- Election Section Perfection?: News Sites' Presidential Strategies Prize Blogs, Tweets, Maps
-- Industry Moves: Reed Elsevier Picks Smith For CEO; £3.6M Possible Salary, RBI Sale Top Of To-Do List
Briefing notes from our research director Lauren Rich Fine are still available: Positive Bias: The Problem With the Latest Online Ad Forecasts | Online Fantasy Sports: Growth Outlook Intact
Check out the best business jobs in digital media. Go here for paidContent.org Job Board.
Reliance Launching Ad-Subsidized Mobile Game Storefront
Reliance's push into the mobile entertainment space continues…The Indian media juggernaut is now launching its own application storefront to distribute more than 900 ad-supported games on mobile. Pulling from Reliance's online gaming site Zapak.com, the company has tapped Greystripe to add a mobile advertising component to its games, which will now be available for free on mobile phones. As an example of Reliance's influence, in September, the company struck a deal that allowed the heads of DreamWorks SKG to leave Viacom's Paramount Pictures and form a new venture, backed by $1.2 billion in funding.
Our streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. Click here to download.
Mobile VAS Firm TeleDNA Raises $10 Million From Peepul Capital
TeleDNA Communications Pvt Ltd, a US and Bangalore-based mobile value-added services (VAS) solution provider, has raised $10 million from Hyderabad based private equity firm Peepul Capital. TeleDNA plans to venture into managed services/MVNO offerings for mobile network operators (MNO), especially in areas like MMS and cell broad cast. It also plans to create revenue generating VAS applications with mature VAS infrastructure products. TeleDNA will also expand its existing sales and support functions.
"Company will also venture into Managed Services/MVNO offerings with technologies where operators have not made any significant revenues. For example, MMS and CellBroadCast has not been a success story for network operators due to lack of compelling applications, complications around service subscription, device settings and billing plans," said Praveen Nallapothula, managing director and CEO TeleDNA.
Telecom regulator TRAI issued its recommendations in August this year to allow MVNOs to start business in India. It has recommended a 74 percent FDI in MVNOs, and a Rs 150 crore nation-wide licence fee for offering MVNO services. These recommendations are yet to be approved by the department of telecommunications to become policy.
TeleDNA, which was founded in 2001, develops and markets SMS/MMS/WAP based value added service products to mobile network operators. The firm has deployed its short message service center (SMSC) and multimedia messaging service center (MMSC) at several places across the world.
A SMSC is a network element in the mobile telephone network which delivers SMS messages. An MMSC modifies the multimedia content into a format suitable for the receiver.
TeleDNA recently won the contract from BSNL south, north and east zone to supply SMSC and SMS Suit products. It has product installations in 14 other telecom networks around the world and also provides mobile VAS solutions for Indian enterprises. Some of its other clients include Aircel, MTNL, BPL Mobile, Standard Chartered, IndusInd Bank and TV9 (which is also backed by Peepul Capital).
This is Peepul's second investment in mobile related services in recent times. Last month it announced an investment of Rs 100 crore in mobile retail chain UniverCell. Peepul Capital, previously known as iLabs, currently has $325 million under management and raised a $214 million fund last year. Some its other investments are waste management company Kam-Avida and a pharmaceutical retail chain MedPlus.
This story was provided by our content partner VCCircle
Mark Logic Digital Publishing Summit, Thursday November 6, Westin Times Square. Insight and perspective from Outsell, Gilbane, Simon & Schuster, BusinessWeek.com, more. Evening cocktail reception. Cost is complimentary. Register now!
Auto Classifieds Portal Carwale Raises Upto $7 M From Sierra Ventures
Carwale had raised money from Seedfund in 2006, and Sierra Ventures is one of limited partners in Seedfund.
Auto classifieds portal CarWale.com has raised funding of upto $7 million from Sierra Ventures. In 2006, the firm raised funding from Seedfund, diluting about a 30% stake. Mohit Dubey, CEO of CarWale confirmed this development to VC Circle and also added that existing investors were staying put. "They believe in the company," said Dubey. Interestingly, Sierra Ventures is also one of the limited partners in Seedfund.
The funds will be used by CarWale to expand its operations. It plans to expand its sales distribution and increase marketing efforts. Tim Guleri and Vispi Daver of Sierra Ventures will join the company's Board of Directors. Praveen Gandhi of Seedfund also sits on the board.
A lot of people research the prices and other details online before making a decision on buying or selling cars. Carwale cliams to thousands of email inquiries a day. It also offers services like comparison of insurance payments and early month installments for cars.
There are a number of other players in this segment. This include Autoindia.com, Carazoo.com, launched by Bangalore-based software maker Logix Microsystems, Gaadi.com, and Indiaautomobile.com (part of Consim Info of Bharatmatrimony).
This story was provided by our content partner VCCircle
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India TV Floats India TV Interactive, Ropes in Arvind Mahendru
Rajat Sharma's India TV has floated a new media firm – India TV Interactive Pvt. Ltd. (ITVI). ITVI will be the vehicle for India TV to
foray into various new media platforms and value-added services. Simultaneously, India TV has also appointed Arvind Mahendru as Senior VP (New Media). Mahendru who was earlier a Managing Partner with GroupM will report to Managing Director Ritu Dhawan here. He will be responsible for growing the group's business on the internet, mobile, and interactive television platforms. He was earlier working with Bharti Airtel Limited (2005-07) as GM, Marketing where he headed content acquisition for broadcast TV, games and international film based content for VOD services for the IPTV, broadband, mobile and DTH platforms.
Prior to Bharti, he worked as Chief Manager, Broadband, Times Internet Limited (India Times) where he was responsible for distribution, content planning and acquisition. He was in charge of the first ever IPTV Product pilot in India understanding consumer insights, product and consumer value propositions, and looked after the "8888" short code service.
India TV's launch of ITVI is a part of the trend wherein media houses are diversifying and launching their content on new platforms
including mobile, internet and IPTV so as to leverage the new set of users there and get maximum revenue out of their existing and new media content. Film production houses are even tying up with mobile content aggregators and games websites and mobile carriers for film related content distribution.
Rajeev Shukla's Bag Films is another media company that has ventured into the digital media domain, while established players like
Network18 and NDTV have a significant presence in this domain.
This story was provided by our content partner VCCircle
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Nokia Targets Emerging Markets With Internet Services And New Handsets
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is targeting emerging markets with seven new handsets and some interesting internet applications, with India the first country to get them. The internet services include email through its mobile portal Ovi (Mail on Ovi), and its SMS application for agricultural information and education, or what it calls Nokia Life Tools. Life Tools is being tested in India before the year's end.
Reuters Market Light (RML) will provide content for its agricultural service, which will include weather, prices, availability of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and current market prices for the produce. The information is customized to the farmer's location and selection of crops. EnableM will provide the content for its education services—including language lessons and vocabulary and general information quizzes to start with, while OnMobile will provide the tools' "fun element", with astrology services and ringtone downloads among others. The phones, which include a music one, are priced from 25 to 90 euros (RS 1,538-7,078) and will begin shipping this year, while the internet services will roll out in the first half of 2009 in India, then in Asia and Africa.
It will be interesting to watch how the agricultural services in particular fare. Unlike a lot of content, and especially so in developed countries where much of it is entertainment, the customized farming updates can really be called a tool, and could make a difference to a livelihood. Reuters claims its mobile news services has already helped Maharashtra farmers make an extra profit of Rs 100,000. For Nokia, which sees itself moving away from being a handset maker to an internet services provider, emerging markets may provide more fertile ground, especially as it faces much more established competition for its web services in developed markets. (Release).
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Mark Logic Digital Publishing Summit, Thursday November 6, Westin Times Square. Insight and perspective from Outsell, Gilbane, Simon & Schuster, BusinessWeek.com, more. Evening cocktail reception. Cost is complimentary. Register now!
Myntra Raises $5 Million From NEA-IndoUS, IDG Ventures India
The customised gifts and merchandise space is hotting up as eYantra, a similar firm, recently raised $3.1 mn.
Myntra Designs, a Bangalore-based company that provides customised gifts and merchandise, has raised $5 million in its Series A round of funding. The round is led by NEA-Indo US Ventures and IDG Ventures India, and Erasmic in it's new avatar of Accel Partners is a returned backer. Erasmic merged with Silicon Valeey based Accel Partners earlier this year. The firm raised angel funding from Erasmic Venture Fund and other investors like Sasha Mirchandani of Mumbai Angels last year. Vani Kola from NEA Indo-US and Sudhir Sethi from IDG Ventures will join the board of Myntra.
Another firm in this segment that recently raised funding was Hyderabad based eYantra, which raised $3.1 million in a Series A from Ventureast and Argonaut.
Myntra is a website from where you can design your own T-shirts, mugs, key chains and other consumer products and then buy them. The firm plans ti use the funds raised for geographical and product portfolio expansion, and also expand its team. "We have identified products for both our individual and institutional market segment," said Mukesh Bansal, CEO and Founder of Myntra.
Myntra's Expansions Plans
The firm currently has a presence in Delhi and Bangalore, and plans to expand to top 10 cities in India over the course of next two years. The cities where it plans to have a presence in near future are Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad. "We plan to go to a new city every 3-6 months, and after 3-4 markets we plan a new city every quarter," says Bansal.
Myntra was formed in 2006, and it started with an online presence. Since then the firm has expanded to corporate and institutional clients. Now, two-thirds of its revenues come from institutional clients, while the rest come from individual online users.
Currently Myntra has 20 products on offer for the online individual customers, while it has 50 products on offer for institutional clients. So far the it has served around 100 companies and 30 colleges, and it plans to use that experience to expand its product range. "We plan to have a more focused catalogue for every segment of the company and every occasion," says Bansal. "This would lead to better offerings and better margins," he adds.
Myntra also plans to expand its team to 150 people from the present 50, and Bansal feels its a good time to hire talents. With the slowdown in the economy, good talents will be available at the reduced prices, he says.
But isn't Myntra feeling impact of the slowdown? "We are a very small company so it's too early to feel the affect," Bansal says. In fact, October was the best month for Myntra in terms of revenues, which were three times the monthly average of last three months. The company also recently crossed annual revenue of Rs 4 crore. But Bansal is in touch with reality and admits they are bound to feel the impact. "But we are not revising any of our forecasts for the next two years," he adds.
Merchandising Space Hots Up
The fact that two companies in this space have got funding in a period 3-4 months says a lot about the opportunity that merchandising and on demand personalisation presents. Online photo printing companies also overlap into this space. Then there are also corporate gifting companies that are active in this segment.
There are a number of photo printing firms that have raised venture capital funding. One of the oldest photo portals is ZoomIn, which is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. Then there is also Printo, which has received funding from Sequoia Capital and Seed Fund. Bangalore-based Picsquare also recently went offline and received an undisclosed investment from city-based Bhola Digital Lab.
Another portal is Banglore-based Canvera, which raised Series A funding in May this year from Footprint Ventures, and joined by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mumbai Angels and a couple angels from the UK. This space has also seen some M&A activity, as Snapfish.com, a Hewlett & Packard-owned online photo printing site, acquired an Indian online photo printing website MeraSnap.com.
This story was provided by our content partner VCCircle
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Zee News Acquires 26 Percent In Bengali Media Player Sky B
Zee News already runs a Bengali news channel, 24 Ghanta, owned by Zee Akaash News Pvt. Ltd. in a 60:40 JV with Sky B.
Media and entertainment company, Zee News Ltd, has acquired a 26% stake in Sky B (Bangla) Pvt Ltd, a regional media company of West Bengal. Zee News already runs a Bengali news channel, 24 Ghanta, owned by Zee Akaash News Pvt. Ltd. in a 60:40 JV with Sky B. While Akaash Bangla is an infotainment company, 24 Ghanta is a news channel.
The two firms have also forged a strategic partnership agreement wherein Zee News will handle marketing, advertising sales and programming initiatives for Sky B's Akaash Bangla. Zee news will
provide this service against an agreed fee structure. The agreement provides that only entertainment programming will be covered while news programming shall continue to be produced by Sky B's current team.
The deal size is not known. Zee News expects to capture 70% viewership share of the market with Akaash Bangla, Zee Bangla and 24 Ghanta.
Zee has been expanding its presence in regional news and entertainment channels like several other national broadcasters in India. A week back, Zee News announced its investment of $5 mn in Zee 24 Ghante to be launched in Uttar Pradesh. It has newly launched Tamil general entertainment channel (GEC), Zee Tamizh.
There has been a rush of national broadcasters regional language channels space. Recently Rupert Murdoch on his visit to India announced a $100 million investment to start six regional television
channels. There are also other like PE-backed INX Group, who is also planning to foray into regional entertainment and news channels. There is Global Broadcast News Ltd (GBN), a majority-owned subsidiary of Network 18, which has a presence in Marathi news.
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LG India To Preload Social Net App On Handsets; LG And Microsoft Reaffirm Commitment
Korean handset maker LG (SEO: 066570) has struck a deal with RockeTalk to preload the Indian start-up's mobile social networking application on several handsets, including the LG KT610 and KF750 (Secret) handsets sold in India. The two handsets go on sale in November. RockeTalk's application includes an instant messenger (IM) chat function that works with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Talk, MSN, AIM and ICQ. The application also includes voice, photo, and video messaging as well as communities and both user-generated and professionally-created content (release).
In a separate announcement, LG and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) reaffirmed their commitment to one another. According to an LG release, the two have agreed to "continued strategic collaboration in R&D, marketing, applications, and services in the field of converged mobile devices." They have also promised to meet each year "to define and align their mobile strategies through annual top management meeting." Perhaps with all the noise coming out about Android, Microsoft needed one of its partners to show it some love. At any rate, as Korea Investment & Securities analyst Greg Roh told Reuters, "Competition is getting more and more fierce in the smartphone segment, and South Korean makers have some weaknesses on Symbian platforms, so it is understandable that they would broaden their alliances." LG is also planning on rolling out an Android phone next year.
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Top Headlines: paidContent.org, mocoNews And paidContent:UK; Conference Coverage
Thanks to everyone who's been a part of our October events this past week. In case you missed it—or if you want to refresh your memory—our full coverage is on our conference channels: Future of Business Media; EconSports and EconWomen.
Meanwhile, our research director Lauren Rich Fine has written two briefing notes; one is on the problem with the latest online ads forecasts and the other is on online fantasy sports. Click here to request these analyses.
And, as usual, our top headlines of the week from paidContent.org, mocoNews.net and paidContentUK:
paidContent.org:
-- Industry Moves: Time Inc. Appoints Chiefs Of New Style And Entertainment Unit
-- Time Inc To Cut 600 Jobs, 6 Percent of Staff; Reorgs Into Three Groups
-- Conde Nast Scales Back Portfolio, Men's Vogue; Layoffs Are Coming
-- Gannett To Slash More Than 3,000 Jobs Across Local Papers
-- 'New' AOL.com Homepage Goes Live With Lifestreaming, New Themes, And More
-- Report: Google And Yahoo Appear Ready To Abandon Talks On Pact
mocoNews:
-- Updated: Moto's Jha Confirms Focus On Android, Ditching Symbian, Java-Linux OS; 3,000 Jobs To Go
-- Earnings: Motorola Reports Net Loss; Handset Sales Down; Spinoff Delayed
-- T-Mobile To Restructure Data Plans In Time For New Handset Portal
-- Cox Communications Details Wireless Plans; Will Use Phones To Send Content
-- Nokia Sees Overall Gaming Market "Not Growing"; EA Slams N-Gage
paidContent:UK:
-- Beatles Game Confirmed: Due Christmas '09, Yoko's Blessing, Still No Downloads
-- Three Bidders Left For Reed Business; Former Publisher of WSJ Involved In One Group
-- Kangaroo Comes Out Fighting: 73-Page Rebuttal Of Competition Concerns
-- BBC Will Add More Third-Party Content For 2012 Olympics Coverage
-- Fearful Execs Still Scapegoating BBC Local; Regulator Must Examine Real Issues
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Sify's Losses Mount; Broadband ARPU Falls; Launches Gaming Portal
Nasdaq-listed Sify Technologies' reported its Q2 FY09 results today showing a net loss of $ 5.32 mn compared to net loss of $ 0.83 mn in the same quarter in the previous year. The company's revenues increased by 9% to $34.4 mn in Q2 this year over the same period last year. It's also 6% increase over the revenues of previous quarter of this year.
The ARPU of broadband subscribers, which fell last quarter to Rs 316, showed a further decline to Rs 305 this quarter too.
Even for FY08, Sify just managed to report a profit of $0.12 million, as compared to $6.25 million profits for FY07. Sify's B2C revenues this quarter showed a decline of 7% over the previous quarter, while B2B segment registered a growth of 13% over the previous quarter.
Sify has been restructuring its consumer business and has re-launched it's chain of retail outlets to smaller formats for wider distribution and reach. With the entry of MTNL, BSNL, Airtel and Reliance Communications into broadband space and slowdown in growth of cybercafes, Sify is now tapping the rural markets.
The firm has also expanded its services to 32 new cities across India with 67 e-ports & 21 new broadband partners The network now reached to 524 cities. Sify also converted 77 local mom and pop cyber cafes into sify e-ports.
In other developments, Sify has launched a new data centre at Mumbai. In this quarter, Sify has launched a new email service in alliance with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) on their portal, and VoIP carrier services for the back haul of voice traffic over Sify's network for telecom companies. It has also launched gaming portal called Antzill.
This story was provided by our content partner VCCircle
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