Maritimei.com cruising for VCs

BANGALORE: Maritimei.com, a Bangalore-based business-to-business (B2B)

vertical portal (vortal), is looking for venture capitalists (VC) and is likely

to finalize on one of them shortly.

In the first phase of investment, the company expecting to raise Rs 10 crore

from the VC. Maritimei plans to make use of the money for its advertising,

promotion and marketing activities as well as for updating its technology.

Maritimei dot com pvt. ltd. founder and chief executive officer Captain Sumit

Gupta said, "Options are open for tie-ups with VCs and FIIs. Currently we

are seven employees in Maritimei but we plan to increase our employee strength

to 25 to 30 soon."

The e-business vortal has affiliations with companies like US-based Air Cargo

Charter, Chennai-based Indo Consultants, Amazon.com and Travel Tour. The site

charges a transaction fee for its services like tracking of cargo, sale of

ships, aircrafts and spares. Apart from this, the company also sells banner ad

space on its site and has got companies like Investmart, ICICI and Satyam Online

advertsing on the site. Maritimei also offers job opportunities for the shipping

industry for which it charges a registration fee and an amount of Rs 15,000 on

successful recruitment.

The company is aiming at a revenue of about Rs 40 lakh by the end of December

2000 and is quite positive about the whole business. As captain Gupta added,

"We are sure to achieve our targets of about Rs 40-50 lakh because we have

already done Rs 7 lakh in our first quarter."

The portal caters to the global maritime and shipping industry and claims to

be one of its kind in the world. Captain Gupta added, "There are other

sites that also exist. But, they are very focussed as they either offer only

shipping news, or focus only on chartering of ships or are only involved with

selling and buying of ships, etc. We are the only ones to have everything under

one umbrella." While company investor and member of the Board of Directors

who is also the managing director of PowerTel Boca Ltd. Dinesh Puri said,

"This site is not addressing a niche segment, but it is a vertical portal

for the shipping industry."