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Ex-Brainvisa Employee and Founder of Enthuse Technologies, Samir Inamdar, Arrested

This is an incident that clearly shows how cut-throat and competitive the eLearning industry has become in India. As smaller companies fight to survive and retain clients, some are resorting to questionable practices in their quest for a share of the pie. Mr. Samir Inamdar is not a stranger to this industry, having first worked with Maximize Learning (subsequently aquired by Techbooks/Aptara) and then having joined Brainvisa (subsequently aquired by Indecomm Global Services) before moving on to start his own eLearning company by the name of Enthuse Technologies.

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"The cyber crime cell of the city police on Saturday arrested Samir Inamdar on charges of violation of copyright laws allegedly leading to a loss of Rs 100 cr to a city-based e-learning firm.

According to a press release by the police, Inamdar had been dismissed from Brainvisa in 2006 and formed his own e-learning company subsequently. However, he illegally retained possession of Brainvisa's product demonstrations and their source codes, and later tried to pass these off as his company's products to potential clients.

Inamdar's lawyer and friend refuted the charges, saying that he was "innocent" and was "being framed".

According to a press release issued by Brainvisa, Inamdar was employed in key positions in Brainvisa Technologies Pvt Ltd, Pune and Brainvisa Inc, US. During his stint in the company, he had access to its products, demonstrations, source codes, proprietary data and confidential information. After being dismissed from service, he illegally copied this data and information.

The press release further said that Inamdar then started his own e-learning company, Enthuse Technologies Pvt Ltd. The Brainvisa management recently learnt that Inamdar and his associates had uploaded product demonstrations originally developed by them, along with their source code, on Enthuse's official website. Inamdar was allegedly soliciting clients by passing off the products as Enthuse's own, the press release stated.

Brainvisa expects to potentially suffer business losses to the tune of US $ 9.5 million annually as a result, the release added. The company has pegged the value of the intellectual property and confidential information allegedly in Inamdar's possession at US $ 500,000."

More here.

UPDATE - 24, JUNE, 2009 - Asma Thorve, ex-Vice President of Brainvisa also arrested by Pune police for providing Brainvisa data to Samir Inamdar. More here.

UTI Ventures Exits Excelsoft, Earns 50 Times Its Investment!

In one of the biggest exits by a private equity firm in India, UTI Ventures has made 50 times its investment by selling its 35.5% stake in e-learning firm Excelsoft Technologies for Rs 125 crore to hedge fund DE Shaw.

UTI Ventures had invested Rs 2.5 crore in 2001 in the Mysore-based firm. Other firms reportedly in the fray for the UTI Ventures stake were Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Ventures, Cisco Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and Softbank.

Read more here

TATA Interactive Systems At Full Steam

...“We believe that the order ranks among the largest single orders won by any e-learning developer in the world.”

Mumbai, India based e-Learning major TATA Interactive Systems is making it rain and how!

From a Newswire press release:

In the beginning of 2007, Tata Interactive Systems won a $3m order to design and develop e-learning solutions for an organisation in the Asia Pacific region.

Following in quick succession was an order valued at $7m, from the European region.

This record was then matched by an order of equivalent value, from a client in North America.

Sanjaya Sharma, TIS’s CEO, commented: “We believe that the order ranks among the largest single orders won by any e-learning developer in the world.”

“In any case, each of these three ‘record’ orders is probably greater than the annual turnover of all but a relative few of the world’s other e-learning development companies.

“And, of course, like any of the world’s leading performers, we’re looking forward to continuing to improve on our performance - and continually exceed our own records,” he said.

Sequoia May Invest In Excelsoft

Known in the eLearning industry for its investments in companies such as Brainvisa and Tarang, Sequoia Capital continues to play the game. A recent article in Business Standard mentions Sequoia Capital to be looking at potential investments in Mysore based, Excelsoft.

From the article:

"Excelsoft is a six-year-old firm which provides a range of customised learner-centric learning systems, test and assessment systems, and desktop tools.

According to industry information, the company, which has a topline of around Rs 50 crore is expected to be valued in the range of Rs 350-400 crore for the stake sale. A deal is expected to be sealed by early-January 2008.

Industry sources further indicate that in addition to Sequoia and the Singapore fund, ICICI Venture is also in the fray to invest in this high-margin firm.

Estimates are that Excelsoft has a net profit of close to Rs 25 crore due to its business model of taking the product licensing route on which services and consulting add value and stickiness.

“Excelsoft has created intellectual property in the area of e-learning technologies and combines its strengths in software development, instructional design and e-learning content development to deliver e-learning solutions,” said an industry source.

Excelsoft presently employs around 500 people across Mysore, Hyderabad and New Delhi, and serves a marquee of clients from global educational publishers, universities and corporates.

A few of the clients of the firm are Pearson Education, Infosys Technologies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Oxford University, World Bank, UNESCO besides a clutch of others. Excelsoft, off late, has been keenly focussing on the test and assessment platform which are key enablers for universities."

VC Funds Bet On e-Learning

From a recent report in Mint:

Online education and e-learning services emerged as the flavour of the season as venture capital firms struck three deals in this space in the last month—

• Mumbai-based Hurix Systems Pvt. Ltd received $5.1 million from Helion Venture Partners
• TutorVista.com, an online tutorials company started by serial entrepreneur K. Ganesh, received $2.5 million from Manipal Education Group
• Mumbai-based e-learning services company 24x7 Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd received $4 million from Capital18, the venture capital arm of media group Network18. All three companies have had earlier rounds of funding.

Couldn't resist sharing a couple of Dilbert - VC Vijay comic strips!:

Hurix Systems gets $5 mn from Helion

Mumbai-based e-learning and publishing services company Hurix Systems Pvt. Ltd has received second round funding of $5.1 million (Rs20.2 crore) from Bangalore-based venture capital firm Helion Venture Partners.

Kanwaljit Singh, managing director, Helion Venture Partners. Singh, along with Natarajan Ranganathan, CFO at Helion, will join Hurix’s board. Hurix had received funding of Rs5 crore at the inception stage from Kotak Mahindra Venture Capital Fund, the VC arm of Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd.

More here.

Educomp Acquires Savvica

The acquisition of Savvica will add online community building capabilities to Educomp's content offerings.

Educomp Solutions, the online, interactive and multimedia education content and solutions provider announced on Wednesday that it had acquired a 70.05 per cent stake in Canadian online teaching solutions company Savvica.

Educomp offers solutions in pre-school learning management, K-12 schools, school management and online as well as offline tutoring.

Its specialised product range also includes learning leadership management solutions and Smart Class learning management modules for private schools and student centred e-tutoring products such as Mentoraide, Mathguru.com and Roots to Wings. Educomp had developed its offline learning and infrastructure management solutions on its own.

To add online solutions to its kitty, Educomp had previously acquired AsknLearn, a Singapore based e-learning content provider. It also took a 76 per cent stake in ThreeBrix E-Services, the owner of learninghour.com, an online and offline learning solutions provider focused at Indian students.

The acquisition of Savvica will add online community building capabilities to Educomp's repository of content across its various initiatives. Later this year, Educomp plans to launch a project to build online communities of instructors and learners based on geographical regions and subject matter, leveraging Savvica's skills.

The company doubled its revenues from Rs 55.5 crore to Rs 110.1 crore in FY07. Its operating margins have consistently expanded from around 45 per cent in FY06 to nearly 60 per cent at the end of the first quarter of FY08.

Educomp is expected to continue delivering its blockbuster performance in the next two years, as analysts expect its revenues to grow at a CAGR of 90 per cent over FY07-09.

The company's profitability is expected to expand even further, leading to an earnings growth of more than 90 per cent. The stock scaled a new high of Rs 3079 on September 20. At the current price, the stock trades at an expensive 86 times estimated FY08 earnings of Rs 35 and 43 times estimated FY09 earnings of Rs 43.

From: Business Standard

Brainvisa Technologies acquired by Indecomm Global Services

Pune based eLearning company, Brainvisa has been acquired. The consolidation juggernaut continues. Looks like Sequoia has attempted to give Brainvisa the platform it needs to unlock its potential and Indecomm gets to round out its service offering.

From the press release put out by Indecomm:

August 21, 2007, India - Indecomm Global Services (“Indecomm”), a leading international business process outsourcing and services firm, announced today that it has acquired Brainvisa Technologies Private Limited (“Brainvisa”), a leading global eLearning solutions company. This is the second acquisition done by Indecomm Global Services this year after it recently acquired US Recordings, a US-based leading provider of mortgage recording solutions.

Click here to read the press release.

Brainvisa To Merge With Indecomm Global Services?

The Learned Man! has been receiving news from its sources that Sequoia backed and Pune, India based eLearning company Brainvisa may be entering into a merger with Indecomm Global Services, also backed by Sequoia.

There has been a fair amount of speculation of late about Brainvisa and its potential suitors. While we await official news, feel free to write in to add to this story or offer corrections.