24/7 Customer plans 2nd round of funding next year

Business Standard

Hyderabad: 24/7 Customer, a US- based business process outsourcing services provider, is planning to go for a second round of funding between June and December of 2004. The company raised $22 million in its first round of external funding in July this year from US-based Sequoia Capital, which has acquired a 20 per cent stake. Prior to this, the promoters of the company have invested $10 million on setting up facilities in the US and Bangalore. The four year old company currently operates a 800 seats call center in Bangalore with 2,000 people on its roll.

"We will decide about the quantum of funding and the time of raising the money depending upon the progress of our expansion plans," P V Kannan, co-founder and chief executive officer of the company said after inauguration of the company's Hyderabad facility. The company plans to utilize the funds for expanding its staff strength to 3,000 and acquiring companies.

The company's new 20,000sq ft facility at Hyderabad has 300 seats, which is being planned to be ramped up to 700 seats by end of this year. The center will focus on out-bound tele sales related to financial support for US-based media company. The company has already spent 42million on the facility and expects to invest another $3 million on expansion. "We have already taken about 60 people and planning to grow the team size to 300 in the next few weeks," Shanmugam Nagarajan, co-founder and chief operating officer of the company said.

"If all goes well, we are planning to set up a 1,000 to 2,000 seats dedicated contact center for a UK-based insurance client in Hyderabad," Kannan said.

The company claims to have bagged a large order from the UK company and is presently running a 250 seat facility in Bangalore. It expects to identity a location and start setting up the facility by next January-February.

For the year year ended March 2003, 24/7 has posted revenue of $15 million and became a cash positive entity. It expects to clock a net profit of $3 million and a turnover of $30 million for the current fiscal.