Canaan Partners plans to sell stake in BharatMatrimony in 2 years

As BharatMatrimony.com plans an initial public offering (IPO) this year, one of its investor, Canaan Partners, would exit its stake in 1-2 years, a senior executive at Canaan said.

Talking to Deccan Herald, Canaan Partners Managing Director Alok Mittal said that even though exits are never necessarily planned in advance and depend on market conditions, it plans to exit BharatMatrimony in the next 2 years.

Earlier this year, Consim Info, owner of BharatMatrimony, was reported to have planned an IPO to raise between $100 million and $125 million later in 2013. In 2006, Yahoo! and Canaan Partners, a global early stage venture investor in innovative technology companies, jointly invested $8.65 million in matrimony service provider BharatMatrimony.

However, in 2011, Yahoo sold its stake in Consim Info to Bessemer Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Canaan Partners for Rs 100 crore ($20mn), valuing the company at $190 million (Rs 900 crore). Yahoo had 12 per cent stake in Consim Info, the company which also runs ClickJobs, IndiaProperty and other classified sites.

“This year the deal flow is going to be good and with the over-enthusiasm coming to an end in the e-commerce sector, other streams of businesses are coming up,” Mittal said.

The company recently announced closure of its new fund Canaan IX, a $600 million fund.
The new fund brings total capital under management to $3.5 billion and will enable the firm to continue backing visionary entrepreneurs who are building disruptive global companies in the technology and healthcare sectors.

One-third of the fund is designated to healthcare investments in biopharmaceutical, medical device and healthcare infrastructure companies.

Mittal said that if more e-commerce websites come, consolidation is bound to happen, as so many companies cannot be sustained.

“I see scope in vertical e-commerce space but we need to enhance our user-experience, which is a direct function of proper supply chain management and deriving real cost benefits in procurement.”