Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Intel Capital has acquired shares in Omnesys Technologies, a Bangalore-based provider of software for securities trading and order-management systems through strategic investments.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

This investment marks Intel Capital’s eighth deals, which are potentially worth up to $45 million, in India during 2010. The deals reflect the strong entrepreneurial culture and the spirit of innovation that exists in India today, Intel said in a statement.

Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and executive vice-president of Intel, said, “Intel Capital’s acquisition of shares in Omnesys Technologies reflects the growing adoption of sophisticated, high-end compute platforms and reaffirms our commitment towards fostering innovation among entrepreneurs in India. Intel Capital hopes to assist Omnesys in their global expansion.”

Intel Capital hopes that this investment relationship will create opportunities for Omnesys to connect with potential customers, and take its product to securities markets around the world.

Shrikant Pandit, founder and CEO of Omnesys Technologies, said, “We see our association with Intel Capital as an important step in our growth plans to access global markets. This marks an important milestone for Omnesys as we aim to strengthen our position in India and in markets overseas.”

Omnesys Technologies provides low-latency, high-performance trading systems, which are used by institutional and algorithmic trading desks.

“Intel’s technology has great potential to help transform fast-growing markets, such as India’s financial industry. Our investment in Omnesys shows Intel’sinterest in supporting the increasing sophistication of financial markets in India,” said Navin Shenoy, vice-president and general manager, Asia-Pacific, at Intel.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Noida-based Vriti Infocom Private Limited, an exam preparation company today announced that it has closed a US$5 million Series B round of funding. JAFCO Asia led the round and Intel Capital, which had previously invested in the company’s Series A round in 2008, made a follow-on investment.

Vriti’s model involves creating a Knowledge Exchange where students consume practice examinations and quality content aggregated from numerous authors and publishers. This is distributed via schools, coaching classes and colleges. Besides high quality content made available in classrooms or online via each institution’s website, the Knowledge Exchange also provides each student preparing for a particular exam with aggregated, national-level comparative performance assessment reports and highly granular and personalized study tips.

Vriti’s proprietary nationwide platform has seen over 450 partner deployments in schools, coaching centres and colleges with over 375,000 students enrolled, and is already India’s largest such platform. Over 33 million questions have been answered. In addition, its free “edusocial” exam-based communities for students have over 500,000 registered students.

“Exam preparation is a key requirement for students and this can be monetized,” said Swapnil Shrivastav, founder and CEO of Vriti Infocom. “With thousands of exams, hundreds of thousands of authors & institutions, and millions of students, exam preparation represents a unique opportunity in education. Our Knowledge Exchange is directly analogous to exchanges such as the ones well established in travel, auctions, content sharing, etc. Similarly, we bring the various players in education together leveraging technology and social networking.”

Vriti’s cloud-based, SaaS business model allows even the smallest of distributors — such as a coaching centre run by an individual tutor in a small town such as Darbangha in Bihar — the ability to offer to its students the benefits of quality content, online testing, benchmarking against peers nationwide and personalized assessment. Vriti’s simple per-student pricing model means the distributor does not need to incur any upfront costs or change any pre-existing business process related to acquiring students and teaching them.

Mr. Shrivastav stated, “Since our first discussions with Intel Capital in 2008 and more recently with JAFCO Asia, we are excited to see that leading technology-focused funds see value in our proposition. Since last year, we have seen considerable customer traction as we have developed the features of our platform. We are now signing up over 100 paying partners and rolling out about 10 new examinations each quarter. We have now deployed our platform with partners in over 80 cities across India and abroad.”

2009 was tough year for companies in raising venture capital since most of the VC firms were averse to taking risks. However VC investments and deals took place.  Here are the top 5 VCs in terms of investments -

• Intel Capital invested in One97 Communications, IndiaMART.com, Global Talent Track, FINO,  ItzCash and BuzzInTown.
• Matrix Partners India invested in FIIJEE, Ver se Innovation Private Limited, Siesta Hospitality, ItzCash and  Quikr.
• NVP invested in  PubMatic,  MapMyIndia, Eka Software Solutions, VMops, OLX Inc,  Deccan Healthcare and mCheck.
• Helion Ventures invested in Pubmatic, YLG, Brand Calculus, GETIT infoserve and Global talent track.
• Aavishkaar invested in Waterlife India Pvt Ltd, Zameen Organic, Swas Healthcare, Saraplast, Suryoday and Utkarsh Microfinance

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

July Systems bangalore based Mobile platform company raised $7M led by Intel Capital and existing investors Footprint Ventures and Sequoia Capital also participated to maintain their equity in the company.

July Systems’ Mi™ Platform offers end to end solutions that enable brands publish, distribute, monetize inventory and personalize services for consumers on the mobile internet. The Mi™ Platform is the industry`s first next generation Mobile 3.0 publishing platform that offers innovative features such as Cross – platform publishing and distribution, Freemium model based monetization, Personalized push based customer relationship management.

Rajesh Reddy, Founder & CEO of July systems said funds will be utilized in expanding technology and operations team. Rajesh Reddy is a serial entrepreneur and has founded Unimobile which was acquired by Verisign. July systems has offices in Bangalore, New York and Los Angeles.

Unimobile Prominent Clients includes NDTV, ibnlive, moneycontrol.com, NBA, National Geographic, Fox Entertainment group.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com