Citigroup invests $6m. in Daksh eServices

NEW DELHI: Citigroup, a financial services company has made its largest

venture capital investment in India of $ 6 million in Daksh, an eCRM service

related company.

Daksh received five offers from global investors and chose Citigroup for its

brand, reach and proven track record in helping companies attain leadership in

their served markets. Ajit Bhushan, Vice President, Emerging Markets

Investments, would be joining Daksh's Board of Directors.

The alliance is to support Daksh's expansion plans of building a 5000 man

team by 2005. Daksh will utilize these proceeds for building new infrastructure,

sales offices and create a corpus for working capital.

Citigroup Venture Capital India Head Ajay Relan said, "This is the

largest commitment we have ever made in India. We evaluated all the major

companies in the country and found Daksh to have a very strong management team,

high quality customer portfolio and very strong prospects for the future. We

also plan to introduce all our services units globally to Daksh for outsourcing

their customer care operations."

Daksh CEO Sanjeev Aggarwal said, "Daksh is excited to build this twin

customer-investor relationship with Citigroup. Daksh welcomes world's largest

financial services company to its board and is also committed to building a

long-term co-sourcing relationship with Citigroup to create a seamless offshore

extension of Citigroup customer support organization."