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Nexus Makes Debut Exit As Naspers Buys Stake In OLX

By Madhav A Chanchani

  • 27 Aug 2010

Nexus Venture Partners has made its exit debut by selling its stake along with other investors in global online classifieds firm OLX, which has got an investment from South African media giant Naspers. 

Suvir Sujan, co-founder and managing director of Nexus, confirmed the development to VCCircle saying that the venture capital firm made "multiples on its investment." He declined to disclose the specifics of the deal. 

Nexus Venture Partners had invested $5 million OLX less than two years ago. OLX provides classifieds services in across the world except for US, where there are already dominant players like Craigslist. OLX has a presence in over 96 countries in 40 languages, with leadership position in 10 countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe.

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OLX had raised a total of $28.5 million in funding from General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders Fund, DN Capital apart from Nexus.

Sujan said that OLX has established a presence in the Indian market and has established a management team over the last one year. It could look at an aggressive push in the country over the next 1-2 years, though online advertising revenues in India remain a challenge.

This would be the first exit for Nexus, which has $320 million under management across two funds. One of its portfolio companies, Mobile2Win, had entered into a share swap agreement with mobile VAS firm Altruist last year, but it did not lead to a monetisation of  investment. Sujan added that Nexus is in discussions to take one of its portfolio companies public.

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OLX acquired a classifieds site targeting Hispanic market in 2006 and has also invested in a Chinese classifieds website in 2007. OLX, founded in March 2006, has 125 million unique monthly visitors.

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