Husband-wife team strikes gold after MapmyIndia IPO
Vermas traversed India’s mega-cities by foot, painstakingly charting streets and landmarks
More than two decades ago, when Rakesh and Rashmi Verma decided to create digital maps of India, the couple were treading new terrain, quite literally. Long before Google revolutionised web cartography, the Vermas traversed India's mega-cities by foot, painstakingly charting streets and landmarks.
But the mammoth task of building their company, MapmyIndia, paid off on Tuesday. The Vermas' startup met with resounding success during its trading debut. The stock rose around 35 per cent to Rs 1,393.65, pushing the couple's net worth to about $586 million, though the stock parted some gains later to close at Rs 1,375, up 33 per cent. It was a fittingly bold start for a company that sells digital maps and geographic data covering India's challenging topography.
A strong market debut punctuates several recent highs for MapmyIndia, formally known as C.E. Info Systems Ltd. Earlier this month, the company reported it had received bids for more than 150 times the number of shares on offer in its initial public offering. Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc are among those that have purchased the company's software.
The husband-and-wife team, who own nearly 54 per cent of the company post-IPO, are the latest founders to strike gold during this year's stock market boom.
"Nobody understood mapping data when we started," Rakesh said in a telephone interview before the listing. "Now, 25 years on, mapping data pervades businesses, industries, government-owned companies and ministries," he said.
The startup reported a 31 per cent profit margin for the last fiscal year, with revenue of Rs 192 crore and net profit of Rs 59.43 crore. Its profit margin reached 46 per cent for the first two quarters of the current year, ending in September.
Rakesh, 71, and Rashmi, 65, started their company in the mid-1990s, when businesses had little interest in buying mapping data. At that time, public internet access had not been introduced in India. Startups had yet to define the culture of today's tech havens, including Bengaluru and Gurgaon.
As the field of entrepreneurs deepened in India, the Vermas stood out for their staying power. Rashmi drives the technology wing of the business, serving as its chief technology officer. Rakesh was instrumental in expansions into sectors ranging from automotive to government-owned companies.
Their skill-set was sharpened abroad. In the late 1970s, after graduating from elite engineering schools in India, the Vermas headed to the US, where they completed graduate degrees and launched successful corporate careers. Rakesh climbed the ranks at General Motors Co. Rashmi built computer databases at IBM Corp. When the couple returned to India, they identified a niche in digital mapping, which had started to catch on in the developed world.
At that time, "databases were tabular, data was thought of in megabytes and there was no internet," Rashmi said. C.E. Info Systems was incorporated in February 1995.
The couple said the first few years of mapping India were more or less a nightmare. Rakesh often joined surveyors on the streets of Mumbai, where the team manually recorded addresses. As technology improved, triangulating data helped capture further flung corners of the country.
The gamble paid off. Barely a year after starting the business, Coca-Cola hired the Vermas to chart their distributorships, which for many years had been demarcated by vague markers such as "along a river" or "next to a highway." Motorola, Ericsson AB and Qualcomm Inc followed suit, contracting the company to map terrains and locate their mobile towers. In 2004, Rakesh and Rashmi unveiled India's first interactive maps platform.
"Our data modeling is our key IP and that's what gives us a head start in this field," Rakesh said. "We've mapped 99.99 per cent of India, capturing every city, town, village and habitation."