Pressmart Media Ltd, a subsidiary of BSE HSE listed Bodhtree Consulting, has raised $6 million in funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and NEA Indo US Ventures. Vinod Dham, founder of NEA IndoUS Ventrues and Sateesh Andra, Venture Partner of DFJ have joined the Pressmart board.
Pressmart primarly digitizes content from media companies - in the form of epapers, magazines etc. They also make the same content available on mobile (check out m.pressmart.net). To be honest, we were very skeptical of the business of e-papers and e-zines, and CEO Sanjiv Gupta took great pains to explain their business model to us. We’ll have a full interview up tomorrow. Some excerpts:
Plans
Pressmart was spun off from BodhTree in 2006, and now has 350 clients in 35 countries. They’re going to use the funding for marketing, and opening offices in US, UK, Dubai and Singapore. They’ve partnered with international publication associations, and are looking at printer, publisher and distributors as channel partners. Pressmart is targeting 5000 clients in the next 24-36 months.
Revenue Targets
The company is targeting revenues of Rs. 100 crores (around $23 Million) in 24-36 months. They have aggressive expansion plans - particularly targeting the North American market, which is already their largest market, and is expected to account for 30 percent of revenues. India isn’t expected to contribute significantly - only around 5 percent.
The expected revenue can be split as follows: the digital processing will form 70 percent of revenues in phase one (24 months), advertising revenue will be 15-20 percent and digitization of archives will be 10 percent. Pressmart believes the $6 million funding is more than enough, and they’ve given themselves a buffer. The only thing they might need further funding for, is an acquisition.
Handset Manufacturer Tie-up
They’re doing a beta test with a mobile manufacturer, and they’re expected to launch a handset by the end of September, with the Pressmart application embedded.
Exits for the DFJ & NEA Indo-US
They say they were approached by Google, and an exit for them would be either through being acquired, or via an IPO. Either way, the VCs can expect an exit in 24-36 months.
