This is the first publicly announced M&A deal in the Indian Web 2.0 space. MIH Web Private Ltd, the Indian arm of South African media giant Naspers, has bought out Bixee.com and Pixrat.com for an undislcosed sum. Bixee.com and Pixrat.com are a part of RHR Networks based out of Bangalore and founded by ex-Yahoo employees Rajesh Warrier and Ruban Phukan. In addition to all assets of Bixee.com including technologies, the founders and team of Bixee.com will become a part of MIH India.
Bixee.com, launched in October 2005, is a vertical search engine for jobs. Pixrat.com, launched early this year, is a social picture book marking website that lets users collect, organize and share pictures from anywhere on the web. MIH India has already beta launched its networking, blogging and photo
sharing web site called ibibo.com.
With this acquisition MIH will now further strengthen its technology and increase its network of consumer internet properties in India, a statement said. Says Ashish Kashyap, CEO MIH India, “With this acquisition, MIH India has commenced setting up an engineering operation in Bangalore in addition to its HQ at Gurgaon. The team will continue to work on augmenting and further developing Bixee.com and other related technologies and develop other innovative applications for the Indian Internet and Mobile space...This acquisition is clearly in line with MIH India’s objective of bottom up building, investing and acquiring internet companies in the Indian market place.”
Since MIH has kicked off M&A in this space, I am sure many other Web 2.0 companies in India - struggling to find ways to scale up - could be looking at strategic sale. All in all it’s a good sign.