March 24, 2000
The Financial Express

indiamarkets plans to set up industrial cafes

B2B infomediary indiamarkets.com will set up industrial cafes in 70 high SME concentration areas across the country at an investment of Rs. 50 crore. The cafes that will work as customer support and e-commerce training centres are expected to be in place within a year.

Briefing the newspersons here on Friday, the company's managing director, Rohan Ajila said    the company would be pumping in the recently received venture capital fund from the international VC firm Warburg Pincus into the project.

"We want to cash in on the first mover advantage and our aim is to have a physical presence and a considerable penetration in e-commerce market," he said. Currently the company has 12, 000 registered users and the number is expected to go up to 100,000 in nine months, he said. indiamarkets.com has also entered into a tie-up with the Indian Institute of Materials Management (IIMM) to host a virtual exhibition on its Website. The supply chain and logistics exposition - Scale 2000 - is scheduled from May 4 to 6 in Bangalore. Speaking on the occasion, the exhibition chairman, G D Bagri said enterprises were facing new challenges from customers.