Bharat Matrimony Case Study

The Idea: BharatMatrimony is an Indian marriage service which helps young men and women to find
their suitable life partners. It was founded in 1997 by Murugavel Janakiraman.
According to its founder Murugavel Janakiraman, users of BharatMatrimony.com can search the database
with searches that typically include nationality, religion, age, availability of photograph and often
geographic location and caste.
The Founder: Murugavel Janakiraman is the founder-CEO of Matrimony.com Pvt Ltd.Murugavels
other initiatives include Elite Matrimony, PrivilegeMatrimony, more than 150 retail outlets across
India, over 350 community-based matrimony portals, Indiaproperty, a leading property portal in India
and MatrimonyGifts, a gifting portal specializing in wedding gifts. Hailing from a humble background,
Murugavel Janakiraman graduated in Statistics from Madras University and completed his MCA also from
Madras University. While working as a programmer in New Jersey, USA, Murugavel Janakiraman started
a community portal in April 1997. A small section for matrimony attracted steady traffic. This eventually
made him to startBharatMatrimony.com in 2000.

Funding: Matrimony.com raised $8.65 million in its first round of funding in 2006 from Yahoo and
Canaan Partners. It was followed by a second round of funding worth $11.75 million from Yahoo,
Mayfield Fund and Canaan Partners. After the second round of funding, the company started exploring
more niche businesses like real estate and the job portal but later it realised that there is much to do in
the matrimonial sector itself, according to Janakiraman. Two years ago Yahoo exited the firm by selling its
stake to Bessemer Venture Partners besides existing VC investors, Canaan Partners and Mayfield
Fund. Consim Info Pvt Ltd, owner of BharatMatrimony.com, a match-making portal, plans an initial
public offering to raise between $100 million and $125 million (Rs. 535 - Rs. 670 crore) later this
year. It plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its overseas operations, the sources said, declining
to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media before a public announcement.
Business Model: Bharat Matrimony has a network of 15 regional portals and over 2 Crore
members. It makes more than 85% of its revenues from user subscription revenues at

Bharatmatrimony (and associated 100 odd matrimony sites). These range from $20 to $2000 packages
- most of them averaging at $30 (Rs 1,500) - according to some insiders. They also have a huge telemarketing team to convert the parents of brides/grooms to become a paid member. (which allows
the user to contact other users.) A detailed breakdown of plans is given below.

Profit & Revenue: The bulk of the revenues comes from subscription fees. On offer are various
membership plans that differ according to the length of time a profile is posted, and features like level of
personalization, special highlighting of the profile, access to verified phone numbers and so on.
At BharatMatrimony.com for instance, the membership fee ranges from a minimum of Rs. 1,790
(US$38) for three months to Rs. 5,790 (US$125) for nine months. It also offers a premium service at
Rs. 8,650 (US$180) for three months, under this plan "a personalized match maker works exclusively"
with the member.
For fiscal 2012, the company earned profit after tax of Rs 50.5 crore, a 75% increase from the
comparable year-ago period.
Promotions: Bharat Matrimony uses a variety of channels for promotion. This includes TV commercials,
Newspapers and magazines, as well as the internet. For television, the company has produced a large
number of ads, most of which have been designed to target the youth of this generation. The company
also has tie-ups with a number of newspapers, TV shows etc. It has also launched mobile apps for
Android, iOS and Windows Phones. They have also focussed on segregating various regions
such as Tamil, Telegu, Bengali etc.

Social Media: Bharat Matrimony makes use of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube for promotions. Of these,
the Youtube channel looks best. It features testimonial videos by users, TV commercials and also
celebrity clips. For example the recent marriage of Ritesh Deshmukh and Genelia has got a lot of
coverage. While not strictly related to the websites business, these are a cheap and effective ways of
increasing visitor engagement.
The company has both a Facebook App and a Facebook community. The Facebook App is basically the
core websites extension, and lets users interact on Facebook. The Facebook page on the other hand is a
mix of trivia, celeb photos and the occasional social messages. The companies Twitter feed seems to be
the most neglected of all, with the company selecting it to post thank you, we will resolve your issue
soon messages to complainants for some reason.

Snapshot of the companys Facebook App.

Awards: Bharat Matrimony and its founder Murugavel Janakiraman have been the recipients of quite a
few prestigious awards. It has featured in Deloittes Fastest Growing Technology Companies list in 2008,
2009, 2011 and 2012. BharatMatrimony has found a place in the Limca Book of Records for record
number of documented marriages online. Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO was honoured the title of
'Digital Entrepreneur Of The Year' (Gold category) at the WAT Awards, 2012 in Mumbai.
Case study has been collaborated by Swarnabha Sarkar (Intern at www.techshu.com)