CustomerAsset gets $2m investment

Bangalore: The city-based CustomerAsset, a customer relationship management (CRM) services company, has closed its second-round funding, attracting an investment of $2 million from Jumpstartup Venture Fund.

For Jumpstartup Venture, a $45-million venture capital fund focused on the information technology and technology-enabled sector investment in CustomerAsset, this is the first foray into the CRM domain. It invests in ventures based in India and those outside the country that have an Indian affiliation. The fund is largely backed by leading international financial institutional investors from Asia, the US and Europe.

Says Jumpstartup Venture MD K Ganapathy Subramanian: "We welcome CustomerAsset to our portfolio companies; it is one of the best companies in its space, with a top-of-the-line management team and an impressive list of clients for whom they deliver business-impacting services. Jumpstartup invests in companies that are set to fulfill a high-growth potential in a short span of time. Our prime objective is to provide support to companies that are built on a sound growth platform, and CustomerAsset is a best example."

CustomerAsset provides contact centres and database marketing services to businesses in the UK, the US and India. The company is funded by eVentures India, a joint venture between Softbank, epartners (a News Corp subsidiary), P K Mittal (Ispat Group), antfactory and, now, Jumpstartup Venture. CustomerAssets services run the entire gamut of the CRM spectrum including inbound and outbound customer interaction management, data mining and campaign planning and fulfillment.

In July this year, antfactory led the $9-million series-B funding round in CustomerAsset, with eVentures as a co-investor. The series-B funding was generated to accelerate CustomerAssets expansion of its offshore contact centre operations in Bangalore, in addition to establishing its presence in Australia and ramping up its services in the US and the UK, where it currently operates.

The company also plans to expand its services offerings and increase the number of employees to over a 1,000 by the end of 2002. It currently employs 600 people across wholly-owned subsidiaries in the US, the UK and India. The company is focused on telecom, financial services, travel, retail, tech-support and media sectors, providing services to, among others, Fortune 500 companies in the US and the UK.

With 10 international clients, CustomerAsset provides the entire gamut of CRM services ranging from contact centre outsourcing, data analytics, campaign management and customer management consulting. These services are built on CustomerAssets own technology platform, Customer Leverage.