Maritimei.Com To Privately Place Equity To Fis

MaritimeI Dot Com Pvt Ltd (MDCPL), a company promoted by Captain Sumit Gupta and Dinesh Puri, is in talks with leading foreign financial institutions (FIIs) and domestic institutions to raise $ 1.75-2.00 million. The company has also approached venture capital companies for part funding.

As a result, MDCPL would be diluting 20 per cent of its equity on a private placement basis. The entire private placement issue is being lead managed by ASK-Raymond James & Associates.

MDCPL managing director Captain Sumit Gupta acknowledged the private placement and said that the entire funding is likely be completed by the first week of June. "We estimate to generate business revenues in excess of $ 50 million in our fifth year of operations. Nearly 85 per cent of the business would be accruing through e-trade and e-commerce operations."

 

"We should be breaking even within 15-18 months and will also be tapping the initial public offering (IPO) market three years later" he added. MDCPL is positioning itself for leadership in web-enabled environment of global transportation logistics. Currently, the company is the only global vortal addressing the entire transportation logistics of international trade with key focus on the shipping sector as it accounts for 90 per cent of the cargo movements. The site will also cover multi-modal transport by land, sea, air, catering to door-to-door logistics of global trade.

This vortal has affiliations with over 8 international companies including MSAS Global, St. Johns Freight, Travel Air, Shyam Powertech (vendor Sales) and Constellation Carriers, Frank Ship Brokers, Indo overseas Consultants etc.

The total registered hits of MaritimeI.com stands over 4,000 hits per day as compared to 700-800 hits per day in October 1999. The hit rate has virtually doubled every month with approximately 47 per cent of the traffic coming from outside India. The company intends to broaden the list by covering several players in each country. The Vortal's scalability enables expansion of the content base to include services like on-line container tracking (land based), multilingual services, on-line education, request for quotes (RFQs), shipping mall and dedicated e-mail services.

Captain Gupta said "the company would be targeting importer and exporters as the earnings by the entire shipping industry is estimated in the range of $ 750 billion on which commission/brokerage paid is 3.75 per cent."

Eventually, the revenue streams of the business would comprise transactions of e-trade, vendor supplies, e-commerce, shipping mail, employment, sale & purchase of vessel and advertisement & banners.