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JustDial, India’s biggest local search engine has deferred its plan to go public and have gone ahead and raised Rs 327 Crore from SAP Ventures and existing investor Sequoia Capital which led this round with investment of Rs 305Cr, its largest investment in India.

Justdial promoters and employees owns 40% of equity in the company while rest 60% lies with investors which include Tiger Global, Saif partners

Founded in 1996 with an mere investment of Rs 50,000, Just Dial is India’s bestknown local search provider and considered as backbone in the SME segment.

Just Dial, which delivers services across the Web, phone and mobile Internet, has a database of about 7.8 million merchant listings, with over 12 million merchant ratings and reviews. Currently 60% of queries originate from internet and mobile, though it started as telephone based service.

Justdial plans to file a DRHP next month and is planning to go public in 2013 and primarily it will be a  liquidity event for their  investors. Just Dial had a total income of Rs. 189.9 crore in fiscal 2011, up 41% over the previous year while the company’s profit after tax rose 55.3% to Rs. 28.62 crore, according to the DRHP filing.

Lets look at their monthly web traction:-

Unique visitors	7.4M
Unique visitors	3.5M
Reach	0.2%
Page views	31M
Total visits	7.5M
Avg visits per cookie	1
Avg time on site	7:10

The local search/information engine space in India has generated strong interest among investors. Last month, Quikr raised $32 million in its fifth and largest round of fund raising.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

JustDial, India’s no.1 local search engine is becoming truly global. In June 2010 JustDial  launched  its  US  operations.  Americans  can  call  1-800- JUSTDIAL  speak  to  a  live  operator  who  can  assist  them instant  information on any service in their neighborhood or city. Just Dial is the first local search engine to test the foreign shores.

JustDial will be soon launching its services in countries depicted in this image below -

JustDial has clear leadership in local search space in India with almost a 90% market share. JustDial Access points are - Phone (69999999/23333333), Web (justdial.com), WAP (wap.justdial.com) and SMS (53999).

Just Dial launched specialized services like JustDial Genie, a personal assistant that will give consumers 24 hour service  and JustDial Trends, a truly democratic  popularity ranking dashboard based on the queries Just Dial receives.

In July 2009, JustDial raised over $8M from Sequoia Capital.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com