Caltiger’s valuation jumps to Rs. 1000 crore

BANGALORE: Caltiger that offers free Net service in the country is today

valued at Rs 1000 crore, which is a jump of 66 per cent in a month. On March 16

this year, Caltiger announced that Spanish venture capital company TransAtlantic

Corporation was taking a 20 per cent stake in the company for Rs 120 crore, that

put the valuation of the company at Rs 600 crore and today its valuation is at

Rs 1,000 crore.

Caltiger's promoters attribute the "crazy valuation’’ to the marked

upsurge in subscriber growth over the past 30 days, ever since the company took

the decision to offer free connectivity and to dilute its equity. Caltiger is on

the threshold of its third successive equity dilution. The promoters currently

hold 60 per cent in the company. With its current enterprise valuation at Rs

1,000 crore, the company is planning to off-load between 10-20 per cent of its

equity by mid-May.

Speaking at the press meet, one of the promoters Joe Silva said, "We are

currently holding negotiations with a few companies and we hope to clinch the

deal within the next few months. We are perhaps the first free ISP outside the

US to structure our revenue model on the targeted advertising concept, popularly

known as the narrow casted advertising model.’’

Caltiger's internal valuations are being done by the Mumbai-based Edelweiss

Capital, one of the country's venture capital advisors in the dotcom segment.

From a subscriber base of 8,000 around end-January, the company saw an

unprecedented jump in subscriber levels by April 1. Though there is no

certifying agency as yet, Caltiger's last official declaration to DoT stood at

68,000. Towards end-February, KPMG had valued Caltiger at Rs 160 crore on a

subscriber base of 8,000. In over a month, the company's valuation rose to Rs

600 crore on a base of 50,000 subscribers, leading on to a 20 per cent dilution

to the famed Spanish venture capitalists TransAtlantic.

Caltiger currently operates in Calcutta, Mumbai, Bangalore, Jamshedpur and

Guwahati. Over the coming months, it hopes to add eight cities every month to

its network. The company also plans to provide wireless internet service, to be

launched initially in Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, at an

initial investment of Rs 8 crore. For this, subscribers would only need to

attach an antenna to their PC to get connected. Using the corDECT technology for

digitally enhanced cordless telephony, the company would be setting up a network

of transmission units in these cities, akin to the cellular network, for

providing this service.