FINANCIAL CHRONICLE -- Apr 30 -- Matchmaking website BharatMatrimony plans to grow by about 50% this year and will expand its online matrimony services to a couple of south Asian markets. Owned by Consim Info, the online matrimonial site is considering tapping countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where the institution of marriage is quite similar to that in India. Most of the company’s services and business models that have been successful in India will be replicated in these foreign markets. BharatMatrimony recently launched religion-based matchmaking services such as ChristianMatrimony and SikhMatrimony. It also launched personalised services for the super-rich and celebrities called EliteMatrimony.com and BM Privilege. FULL ARTICLE @ FINANCIAL CHRONICLE
ELECTRIC NEWS -- Mar 23 -- Bharat Matrimony offers registered users a
special 'facial search' software that scans the features of its 15m
users. You can't search for an Indian version of Julia Roberts or Brad
Pitt. Instead, users are restricted to the site's gallery of leading
Indian celebrities to pick from. The face of Aishwarya,
a former Miss World winner, is the most requested. FULL ARTICLE @ ELECTRIC NEWSPAPER
KNOWLEDGE WHARTON -- Nov 13 -- Anupam Mittla, founder of Shaadi.com and
Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of
BharatMatrimony.com say that over the past five years, the
online matrimonial market in India, which they estimate to be currently
around US$50 million, has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of
50% to 70%. The India Online 2008 Matrimony report identifies
Janakiraman and Mittal as market leaders with nearly 70% of the market
between them in terms of the user base. The industry has a host of
small players, including those with extremely niche positioning like secondshaadi.com (for second marriages), idontwantdowry.com (for those against the practice of dowry), h1bmarriages.com (for non-resident Indians and technical professionals), positivesaathi.com
(for HIV-positive people) and so on. FULL ARTICLE @ KNOWLEDGE WHARTON
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THE HINDUS BUSINESS LINE -- Oct 2 -- Shaadi.com has tied up with Dish TV and Vodafone and Bharat Matrimony with Tata Sky and Airtel. While there are only around 40m Internet users in India, the number of mobile services users and DTH subscribers is estimated at 300m and 14m respectively. "Our tie-up with Vodafone took off in August and already the service has been accessed around five million times," says Mr Vibhas Mehta, Business Head, Shaadi.com. Mr Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO, Bharat Matrimony.com, says the tie-up with Tata Sky will give the company direct access to over 2m homes in addition to its existing base of over 12m members. FULL ARTICLE @ THE HINDUS BUSINESS ONLINE
PRESS RELEASE -- Sep 29 -- BharatMatrimony.com, Indian matrimony portal launch its services on Airtel, India's leading
mobile telecom service provider. Airtel subscribers can access the matrimony
services with GPRS enabled handsets across the country. FULL ARTICLE @ OPEN PR
REUTERS -- Aug 28 -- Online matchmaking services in India have announced tie-ups with
telecom service providers, enabling subscribers to view profiles of
eligible partners on their mobile phones. Shaadi.com partners with Vodafone and Bharatmatrimony.com with Nokia. In a country
with nearly 300m cellphone users, but where only 11m
people have access to the Internet, taking matchmaking directly to
customers' fingertips makes sense. FULL ARTICLE @ REUTERS
PRESS RELEASE -- July 23 -- Tata Sky, a satellite television service in India, and bharatmatrimony.com have
launched ActveTM Matrimony on Tata Sky. Tata Sky subscribers can access the profiles on
their TV on a 24×7 basis. "ActveTM Matrimony is a perfect platform,
which simplifies matrimony search process of people who do not have
access either to the internet or our offline initiative
"BharatMatrimony Center" in their city", said Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO of BharatMatrimony.com. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH WHACK
MONEY CONTROL -- May 27 -- Metropolis Health
Services India, experts in healthcare since 1981, and BharatMatrimony,
India's leading matrimony portal, launched a joint initiative to
promote premarital health check ups. Members of BharatMatrimony can
avail the pre-marital health check up at special prices and also upload
the certificate as part of their profile. Such profiles will be
highlighted as "Health Profiles". Premarital health check ups help in
preventing untoward instances of contracting infectious or sexually
transmitted diseases, abandonment due to the same, reducing health risk
for future progeny. FULL ARTICLE @ MONEY CONTROL 
PRESS RELEASE -- Feb 6 -- Consim, formerly known as BharatMatrimony, has closed its second round of investment of USD $ 11.75 million led by Mayfield Fund and participation from existing investors, Yahoo! and Canaan Partners. Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder & CEO, Consim Info, said, "We plan to leverage this fund to expand our matrimony business in the international markets and to strengthen our other classifieds offerings. We believe that the global knowledge and experience of our investors will help us scale our business strategically." FULL ARTICLE @ TECHWHACK
Mark Brooks: BharatMatrimony competes head on with Shaadi in India for matrimonials dating.
PRESS RELEASE -- Nov 7 -- BharatMatrimony.com launched an enhanced voice service that allows members to describe themselves in their own voice and post it as part of their profile. Users can listen to the expectations of prospective partners over the phone or on the computer. The service is free. FULL ARTICLE @ FREE PRESS RELEASES
Mark Brooks: Members call in to a number and leave a message which is attached to their profile. I know some sites have tried this in the past and been disappointed with the results. Time to try it again. The internet and voice will conjoin soon. Keep it super simple and you'll get usership. Its also time to consider anonymous calling. The majors are signing up now ;-) Jangl, Zing.dm, Ccube and Jajah are services to consider. Email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com for a copy of my 20 point analysis of them.
PRESS RELEASE -- Sep 11 -- GoMilni is another dating and matrimonial site. However, unlike other "free" sites that contain hidden costs, this Vancouver-based dating service offers all features – including personal messaging, search, chat, and open forums for discussion – for free. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
Mark Brooks: Inspired by Markus at PlentyofFish, I'm sure. Markus is also based out of Vancouver also. Can a matrimonial site in Vancouver take on Shaadi and BharatMatrimony?
RED HERRING -- Aug 2 -- Yahoo and Canaan Partners have invested $8.6 million in Bharat Matrimony, a leading Indian personals site. Canaan led the round, which was the first outside funding for Bharat Matrimony, a nine-year-old company whose matrimonial service focuses on serious relationships rather than dating. This is Yahoo's first investment in India other than in its own development center in Bangalore. Bharat Matrimony claims to have facilitated more than 500,000 marriages, including that of CEO Murugavel Janakiraman. "We will use the funds for expansion as we target the Indian diaspora in the U.K. and Southeast Asian countries," said Mr. Janakiraman. It charges $10 to $15 per month for its services and provides 40 physical stores for customers without Internet access. It also runs jobs, real estate, autos, and general classifieds sites, and will put the new funding toward developing these verticals as well as opening hundreds of stores. In March, Sequoia Capital India, then called WestBridge Capital, invested $8 million in People Interactive, which runs a matrimony portal, Shaadi.com. As of Tuesday night, Yahoo India Matrimony was still syndicating personals from Shaadi.com, even though it's a close competitor of Bharat Matrimony.
Mark Brooks: I'm most interested to see how Bharat's roll out of more physical locations in India goes. Singles will pay more to get more services. Great Expectations, The Right One/Together Dating, Table for Six and It's Just Lunch lead the way in high end service oriented matchmaking/dating services for the masses. However, they still only reach a small portion of the potential market that online dating sites are captivating. Online services fall short for service. Singles don't want online dating. They just want to date suitable, potential suitors. A sizable portion of the online dating market want a little more handholding, more service, and will pay for it if it leads to more (good) dates. I don't think they will pay $3000+ a year, en masse. I do think they will pay $500-$1000 a year. That price base would support some phone based assistance and matchmaking. Let's see what happens this year, with Yahoo learning from Bharat.
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