Sulekha.com, the India-centric member generated community and social network that integrates social media and local commerce services has secured $10 million from the Silicon Valley venture capitalists Norwest Venture Partners in Series A financing.
Pramod Haque, the managing director of Sulekha.com and an Indian origin said that the company now would utilize the fresh funds to offer its services to smaller cities going beyond the eight major cities they had been focusing upon until now. He also added that Sulekha.com will now look forward to cater to regional populations in local languages.
He said;
Suffice it to say that the goal is to go into smaller Indian cities. We are very bullish about the macro trends driving consumer Internet businesses in India.
Founded in 1998 in Austin, Texas by Satya Prabhakar, engineer of Indian origin, Sulekha.com is one of the pioneering Web 2.0 ventures. It offers social networking and local commerce in over two dozen Indian cities and around the world. Apart from offering users to create and publish blogs, directory services etc, it also offers users to buy and sell classified advertising much like craigslist.com and do a host of other transactions as well.
This is indeed big news as far as Web 2.0 funding is concerned especially since it focuses on targeting the Indian users and tap its fast emerging market and booming economy. Also, since it is an early mover, a good show can be expected from it in the near future.
News: The Times of India
