The Hindu Business Line : Local info just a click away

You can now cast away your Yellow Pages and telephone directories and use the mouse instead to sniff the information online. Thanks to Guruji.com, an Indian search engine has made things easy by entering into an arrangement with the publishers of the information to make them available online.

The Bangalore-based tech firm received a seed funding of $7 million (approx Rs 32 crore) from venture capital body Sequoia Capital India. This is part of Sequoia's $750 million investment across its three funds for India.

Guruji.com was set up by two ex-IIT Delhi alumni, Mr Anurag Dod and Mr Gaurav Mishra. They have partnered with several Yellow Pages providers across India to bring information on offline businesses onto the Web. Locally relevant results will be brought to the searcher, and even city-wise searches will be possible. The firm has indexed information of 20 cities already, said Mr Mishra. Guruji.com expects to break even in two years' time. On what would make it popular on the Web, the founders believed word-of-mouth would work. "The proof lies in the pudding," is how Mr Mohit Bhatnagar, Operating Partner, Sequoia Capital, put it.

The firm has 30 million pages indexed and will reach 60 million pages by next month, said Mr Dod. The company also plans to launch the search engine in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu soon. "Search in two languages will be offered in two months' time," said Mr Mishra. Currently `Inglish' slang such as `mamu' and `bandh' throw up relevant results on the site.

The firm is also working on bringing the search engine to other platforms, such as mobiles.

More Stories on : Internet | Venture Capital

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page