India marriage network business story wind investment has been more than 20 million dollars

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"Online Matchmaker" is also crazy

Zhang Feifei

If you happen to like to see some Bollywood movies, don't easily believe that the romantic love Bridge of the male heroine. In today's India, marriage is still a serious event in which parents are deeply involved. Interestingly, this seems to be exemplified by an Indian version of one of the top jewellery brands--the beautiful, modern heroine, who sadly says in the title, "Our marriage is an arranged wedding."

But the way of course can be more modern. If you ask India's "Young" youth how to talk about marriage, the answer is probably through dating sites. Originated in the late 90, the Indian Marriage and love network market also experienced a development boom, the largest of which is called Bharat Matrimo-ny (India Marriage Network). When his founder Murugavel Janakiraman appeared, it is hard to imagine that the suave young Tamil entrepreneur has rubbed off nearly millions of marriages, the biggest "matchmaker" India has ever seen.

American Entrepreneurship

Like many people, Murugavel's entrepreneurial story originated in the United States on the other side of the ocean.

In the 1997, India began allowing private investment to enter the Internet economy and spawned portals such as sify.com and red-iff.com. Murugavel, who had just arrived in the United States, worked as a programmer in an internet company. Silicon Valley's burgeoning network business model is pounding Murugavel's mind, and he soon created a "Tamil reporter" (Tamil Reporter), a community website serving local Tamils.

This is a comprehensive community site, but more than two years later, Murugavel found that the flow of love and marriage channel is very impressive, so in 2000, this part of the business operation alone. And then the financial crisis also triggered the United States network economic bubble collapse, Murugavel lost in Silicon Valley job, simply full-time engaged in Web site entrepreneurship.

He began to spend his savings on investment, and as India did not have an internet company devoted to matchmaking, the business of the new website Bharat Matrimony (Indian Marriage network) was rapidly developing, and Murugavel decided to start imposing membership fees on registered members. The initial cost is 8 dollars a year, but now the most basic level of membership fee has risen to 75 U.S. dollars per quarter.

Fortunately, India's early Internet consumers more compromise on the service model of fees, Bharat matrimony did not appear in the membership system acclimatized to the problem. In 2004, Murugavel the company's headquarters to Chennai.

But the first question he encountered was how to charge. At the time, credit cards were still low in the Indian population and electronic payment systems were not sound. "In India, you can never expect or wait for events to happen quickly, so we create a new way of marketing--door-to-door payment services." "Murugavel said.

In addition, Bharat matrimony soon set up 130 physical stores in more than 10 major cities in India. In this respect, Murugavel explains, "One of the unique features of the Indian market is that there are more languages, with the help of local employees, parents of marriageable men and women can go to the physical store to search for the right person to marry, and then print out the results for more reference." More importantly, it helps consumers increase their reliance on the brand and make it easier for them to accept the fee system. ”

In 2006, Murugavel for the first time, Bessemer Venture and Mayfield and other U.S. wind investment 8.6 million dollars of capital injections, 2008, the second time VCs made 9.5 million U.S. dollars of financing. At present, its overall venture capital financing amount exceeds 20 million dollars.

Like all internet companies, murugavel the bulk of the investment in marketing and marketing. To this day, India's main Newsweek and website are open, and Bharat Matrimony ads are often seen. Another key area of investment is the technical innovation of the site.

Complex business

Compared with the ever-changing city skyline, the traditional concept of marriage is still stubbornly alive in Indian society. The background of India's multiple languages and caste system make matchmaking a very complicated business.

Among Hindus, who account for 80% of India's population, caste remains an important determinant of marriage compatibility, which is not the only four categories in the textbook, which, because of differences in language and region, is divided into many subspecies under each caste, sometimes only hundreds of. Now more than 70% of Indians still believe in astrology and have to do divination before getting married to determine whether or not to match. In response to these two features, Bharat matrimony developed its own search engine, able to pair caste with constellation.

Another difference in Indian marriages is that parents still play a leading role in the process. True, Indian dating sites also have problems with the accuracy of information, but with a mobile phone number certification and the deep involvement of parents throughout the process makes the issue less urgent in India.

Murugavel introduced his own dating process. In 1999, he met his wife on his website and got married. His earliest contact was not the woman herself, but her father. "I was still in the United States, and my wife was in India, so I had a few phone calls with my father-in-law, and my parents visited the woman's family," she said. After that, I flew back from the United States to spend some time alone with my wife, and finally set the matter down in three weeks. "Murugavel said.

Although the conditions of matchmaking are more complex, but for Bharat Matrimony in the field of "search" to provide a huge market. And Murugavel has always thought that technological innovation is its most "know-how" to maintain competitiveness. Bharat Matrimony's newest function is to provide facial recognition. If you specifically want a certain type of look, just submit a reference to the photo, through the site's facial recognition program, will automatically generate the most similar to the key features of the list of candidates. Another "heart-linked" function, which provides an interest in keyword recognition, can be found in music, film or sports activities have a common interest in the Blind date.

Financing and expansion

With the support of new technology, Bharat Matrimony's business has entered a fast-growing period. At present, the company in the marriage search engine market share reached more than 50%, the number of registered users reached 20 million people, of which active users reached 2 million people.

In 2006, Bharat Matrimony became the industry leader in the online dating market, and began to expand horizontally, building India Property (Indian Real Estate), Clickjobs (click for a job search) and India Automobile (India Auto) And so on a series of websites, and all these brands belong to Consium under the management. But with the impact of the 2008 economic crisis, Murugavel abandoned some areas of uncertainty in business models, focusing on more profitable matchmaking and property sites.

In 2009, Bharat matrimony increased market segments, set up a premium service for elite business people and set membership fees at $1000 per quarter. In addition, there is a marriage service for the Sikhs, Christians and Muslims of different groups. In recent years, with the rise of the Electric business website, Bharat Matrimony in 2011 also launched a special sales of marriage supplies business son station matrimony Gifts.

Membership fees are still the biggest gains from online and wireless value-added services compared to the benefits of Chinese dating sites. Bharat Matrimony's head also said that the company will have a listing plan in the future, but will not be listed for listing, the current profitability is good, but also very satisfied with the venture investment cooperation, and now the market valuation is low, so we have to wait for the right time.