Evolus receives $1 million in VC funding

Cyber News Service

BANGALORE: Evolus, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company, having offices in Bangalore and Switzerland, has received venture capital of $1 million from Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) nearly a month ago. The company, which has been in talks with several venture funds in the country, is expecting an additional $3 to $4 million to come by the end of January. A large part of this fund will go into building its product Evolus ERP's brand image and setting up a dealer channel in the Asia Pacific region as well as West Asia. A smaller part will go into enhancing its product Evolus ERP, which is ready for launch, in line with emerging technology trends.

The company hopes to start its marketing activities in early February. It has already signed on Chennai-based Kashyap Radiant Systems as its sales and implementation partner for South and is on the look out for three more partners to address the north region. The new partners will be in place by the first week of January 2000. In South East Asia comprising Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, it will have two partners and in West Asia it will have one in UAE. It might add another later, if called for, to address the West Asia market. These partners will act as value added resellers and will be responsible to sell and implement Evolus solution.

As part of its marketing strategy, Evolus has introduced Evolus Quick Implementation Program (Equip). To be offered by its sales and implementation partners, Equip is expected to be a key motivator for sales. "Under this program we guarantee full-cycle implementation within 60 days (depending on the industry) and if there any implementation delays, the spill-over will be free of charge for the client. This also, among other things, offers round-the-clock-through-the-year stand-by implementation support and parallel training for the core user group even as implementation begins," says Visveswar Mavathur, Marketing Head-India and Asia Pacific, Evolus (India).

Forming `Evolus Global Inc.' in the US, and transferring the ownership of the Indian and the Swiss arms to it is among its future plans. The intellectual property rights (IPR) will also be vested with this US parent. Mavathur adds, " As of now, both of our offices (in India and Swiss) holds the IPRs. We want to make the US office as the sole place for IPRs. The IPRs that we currently hold in the other offices will be transferred to the US office. The US office will also be the base for the new global marketing strategy. Since all the major companies are situated in the US, we thought that starting an office there will be the right thing to do." The US parent company will also be in place by February 2000. The funds for the US and Zurich operations will be funded by a separate fund driven from the Zurich center. Also on the anvil are plans to have an office in London, UK, by April 2000.

In March 2000, the company, which has a manpower of 80, will have completed seven months of operation in India and for this period Evolus is expecting a turnover of around Rs 1.8 crore. As of now, Evolus has completed the implementation in the Raman Group of Companies and expects to have a clientele of around 20 by the end of its first year of operation in India.