Murdoch, Icf Ventures Pick Explocity.Com Pie

Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch and the US-based ICF Ventures have picked up substantial stakes in explocity.com, a city-based portal focusing on first-time visitors to any city.

Sources close to explocity.com said Murdoch has picked up the stake

for around Rs 55 crore. But details about ICF Ventures' pie-purchase have

not been disclosed.

Murdoch is learnt to have held talks with Ramji Chandran, managing director of explocity.com, during his visit to Bangalore in March. He is also learnt to have held discussions with Microland but decided to pick up stake in explocity.com first.

The soon-to-be launched website contains information about cities such as New York, New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai.

Sources said explocity.com will be later expanded to other major cities across the world.

Chandran, a city-based journalist, also brings out a tabloid, Bangalore Weekly.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp is understood to be keen to invest in two other local IT companies, Microland group's ITSpace.com and Fabmart.

NewsCorp's deal with Kar for ITSpace.com would be the second such deal with a Microland company, apart from the stake that it had picked up in Indya.com earlier. Murdoch has also reportedly picked up a minority stake in the city-based e-tailing portal, Fabmart, in which Reliance has a majority holding.

Apparently, the move to invest in infotech companies is part of Murdoch's corporate strategy to play a big role in the emerging IT scene in South Asia. With India going the e-way, Murdoch does not want to be left behind and the series of investments in start-ups is linked to this strategy.

In the next year alone, NewsCorp is expected to pump in over Rs 88 crore in infotech-related ventures in the country as part of a larger plan to turn the company's focus to IT-driven growth.

The Star India management has also okayed investments up to Rs 44 crore over the next 6-12 months on various IT-related businesses.

Murdoch's media empire has assets of $39 billion and revenues of $14 billion, and broadcasting stations and newspapers and magazines in almost all countries, excluding Africa.