Pressmart secures USD 6 mn fund from US venture capital firms

Hyderabad, Sep 4: Pressmart India Ltd, a leading print-to-digital delivery services major, Thursday announced that it has secured USD 6 million funding from two US-based venture capital firms for the next phase of its growth.

Draper Fisher Jurveston and NEA-IndoUS Ventures have pumped in USD 3 million each and will in return get 46 percent stake in the Hyderabad-based company.

Pressmart chief executive Sanjiv Gupta told reporters here that the investment would accelerate the company's global footprint and the resources to build on its market momentum.

The company will expand its global sales, marketing and customer-support presence across 35 countries, where it currently serves over 350 print media customers.

He said the company's strong SaaS (software as a service)-based e-publishing and digitisation services helped it gain rapid recognition worldwide. Pressmart has now set a customer target of 5,000 publishers in three years.

Pressmart delivers the electronic edition on multiple distribution channels including web, mobile, RSS, podcasts, blogs, social networking sites, articles directories and search engines.

The company also announced induction of Sateesh Andra, venture partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Vinod Dham, founding managing director of NEA-IndoUS Ventures, in its board of directors.

Sateesh, whose company manages USD 6 billion in over 30 countries, said he was excited to invest in Pressmart and make it a leader in e-publication space. Draper Fisher has so far invested in 15 companies in India.

According to industry estimates, the worldwide print readership is in excess of 1.4 billion readers daily and the worldwide publications are in excess of 1.62 million. In India alone, there are over 150,000 publications registered with the Registrar of Newspapers of India (RNI).