INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - NOVEMBER 16th - NOVEMBER 30th
- 2007
COMAT TECH RAISES $10M FROM AVIGO
E-Governance services firm Comat Technologies has raised about $8-10 million from Avigo Capital in its second round of funding. Earlier this year, the firm had raised around $4 million from Intel Capital in what was the chipmaker's first strategic investment in the e-governance space.
Mauritius-based Avigo Capital Partners (Avigo) is an independent private equity firm with a focus on investments in the SME sector in India. Its earlier investments have been primarily in traditional sectors and portfolio companies including Tecpro Systems, Privi Organics, Get Engineering & Construction and Spykar Lifestyles.
Comat Technologies president Sriram Raghavan said, "The money will be used mainly for setting up of e-governance kiosks and platform innovation." Investment bank 03 Capital advised Comat in sealing up the transaction.
It is learnt that the latest fund raising values Comat at $70-80 million. Comat is believed to have a turnover of around $10-15 million.
Comat has set up rural kiosks in Karnataka and Haryana called Ekal Kendras. The company is in the process of deploying a similar model in Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand and UP by the end of this year. "We have current orders for setting up 7,000 centres and plan to touch 15,000 centres by fiscal end," Mr. Raghavan said.
To fund its huge expansion plans that involve investments of Rs 200 crore over the next 12 months, the company is open to another round of funding or going for debt.
Comat started off as an outsourcing entity for egovernance projects of various state governments. It has now also migrated to public private partnerships providing direct consumer services by mapping the needs of the rural citizen and policy initiatives of various government agencies onto a software and communications technology platform.
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