Sriram Raghavan founded Comat Technologies raises $15 Million

Bangalore: Sriram Raghavan founded Comat Technologies, a Bangalore based e-governance service provider, raised $15 million in third round funding from Omidyar Network and the Unitus Equity Fund (UEF). For UEF it is the first non-microfinance investment while for Omidyar Network it is the first direct investment in India.

The company has been deploying information and communication technology (ICT) based G2C (Government to Citizen) and B2C (Business to Consumer) services delivery in rural and semi-urban areas for the last decade.

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A VC Circle report states that Comat had divested 10.5 percent stake to raise $5.5 million from Hughes and Intel Capital in the first round in March 2007. Comat, which operates a network of rural business centres, had late last year raised $6.2 million (Rs 25 crore) from Avigo Capital Partners.

The company has started services like online bus ticketing to rural Karnataka, digitization of all government documents to address the information needs of citizens, which supports various G2G, and G2B functions apart from G2C and also plans to leverage the opportunity in Rural BPO segment.

Comat currently has around current 1,100 Rural Business Centres, which it plans to increase to 6,800 by March 2009. It plans to increase its network to 10 Indian states - Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Sikkim, Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

"The infusion of funds from international, like-minded investors provides us singular focus and direction to benefit and transform the lives of rural citizens. The fact that we have already touched one million farmers in the state of Karnataka alone validates that what we have embarked on is not an experiment, but a proven, scalable and transformational business model," said Sriram Raghavan, CEO, Comat Technologies.