Mumbai-based Suvidhaa Infoserve Pvt Ltd has raised $7 million (Rs 32.63 crore) its second round of funding led by International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank. Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Reliance Venture Asset Management also invested in the fresh round.
Suvidhaa Infoserve is a retail services aggregator which offers railway and air ticketing, mobile recharge and bill payment services in urban, semi-urban and rural locations in India. Since its founding in 2007, Suvidhaa has established more than 25,000 neighborhood stores
called ‘Suvidhaa Points’. The company plans to expand this network to 100,000 points in the next two years, said Suvidhaa chairman and managing director Paresh Rajde.
"The funds will be used for two sides of growth. One is to add more services to our platform and expand reach to consumer in best possible ways," said Rajde. Suvidhaa is promoted by Rajde and also has seed funding Shapoor Pallonji Mistry, a construction tycoon with 18.5% stake in Tata Sons.
Suvidhaa could also look at other channels like telcos and banks or B2C services on mobile as well as on the web, said Rajde.
Currently Suvidhaa offers services like air, railway and bus tickets, mobile recharges, insurance payments, utility bill payments, loan origination, hotel packages, movie ticketing and a wide variety of other services. Suvidhaa has grown its presence in 20 states and
throughout 500 cities / towns across urban and rural India.
The government of India has also allowed the company to set up around 70,000 community service centres (CSCs) across 4.2 lakh villages in rural India.
“Suvidhaa has proven that it can successfully bring valuable services to the doorstep of today’s Indian consumer. The company’s rapid growth is also boosting employment throughout the region and infusing substantial capital into the Indian service sector,” said Andi Dervishi, who leads IFC’s investment in the electronic payment industry.
“Suvidhaa is delivering on this vision as it has scaled from 1,300 outlets to more than 25,000 outlets in less than two years. This is an increase of about 20x, with solid revenues to prove it," said Niren Shah, Managing Director, NVP India.
