Leading US-based venture capitalist (VC) Promod Haque has invested $10 million in India's first and largest online social media and local commerce website Sulekha.com through his firm Norwest Venture Partners (NVP).NVP has invested in about 26 companies, based in India and also those based out of India but catering to Indian consumers. It recently funded the launch of a travel portal yatra.Com besides investment in a Pune-based IT company.The site Sulekha.com features over 10 million pages of content and has a large member base, through its portfolio of interactive services in areas of blogs, groups and networking along with local commerce including classifieds, Yellow Pages and events in 25 cities in India and worldwide.The investment would be deployed for broadbasing the company by venturing into Tier II cities and tapping the local commerce, Satya Prabhakar, founder & CEO of Sulekha.com, said.A part will also be put into migrating the online story onto emerging media mediums like mobile phones through strategic tie-ups."We presently have a team of about 270 people which we wish to expand to 500 by the end of 2007," he said.Betting on the India growth story, Promod Haque said NVP was keen on Indian markets and looking at making strategic investments in companies in knowledge processing services and other emerging sectors. The Sulekha.com investment has been made through the NVP10, a global fund of about $650 million, he said.
