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VenturEast, Zephyr Peacock Invest $6M In e2E RAIL

By Madhav A Chanchani

  • 30 Mar 2012

and have invested $6 million or Rs 30 crore in Bangalore-based, a rail services company primarily focusing on signalling, track and electrification sectors.

The two private equity funds also plan to invest another $6 million in the subsequent years. The funding will be used by e2E to ramp up its global presence, training facilities and working capital capacity.

AGacquisitions & Co. was the exclusive investment bankers to e2E RAIL on this transaction.

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e2E has operations in India and overseas markets, having worked in projects for Indian Railways, Delhi Airport Metro Express Link, Port Hedland project in Western Australia, Malaysia Railways, London Under Ground and Mecca Metro in Saudi Arabia. It has also worked with most of the leading global signalling OEM companies, both in India and abroad.

As a part of the transaction, Rakesh Chopra, will join the Board of E2E as an Independent Director. Chopra, an officer of Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE) of 1971 exam batch, was previously Member (Engineering), Railway Board and ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India.

e2E has been founded by Ganapa Sreenivasa Rao, a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the railways sector. Rao spent over 12 years in the Indian Railway Signal Engineering (IRSE) group and his last assignment in the Ministry of Railways was in the capacity of joint director – research design and standards organisation.

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“The global railway market represents a $600 billion opportunity over the decade. We, at e2E, have built a knowledge platform and a talent pool which will allow us to deliver on the most knowledge-intensive and critical segments within this opportunity. Our partnership with VenturEast and Zephyr will allow us to match our human capital and sector expertise with financial capital and management expertise to create a business that is capable of supporting the vision and opportunity that we articulated for ourselves,” said Ganapa Sreenivasa Rao, managing director of , e2E RAIL.

“The recent excitement around the Indian Railway budget could hardly have been ignored. The central theme of this was the ability to raise funds for the ‘safety and the efficiency’ of the Indian Railways by investing in ‘signalling and electrification.’ It might appear that we are contrarian to back such a company now, given the deficit budget. But the need in India is critical, and so is the need for such services globally,” said Sarath Naru, Managing Partner of VenturEast.

“e2E RAIL has the potential to emerge as one of the leading companies in the railway engineering sector. We plan to assist the company in its growth plans by providing it access to our global network of relationships and providing guidance on its long-term strategy and organisational development,” said Mukul Gulati, managing director of Zephyr Peacock India.

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