YouSnapper plans to tap capital market for expansion

Mumbai: YouSnapper, which provides wide area wireless connectivity, plans to tap the capital market to fund its expansion plans in India.

YouSnapper is a 50:50 joint venture between Citigroup Venture Capital International-owned You Telecom and Malaysia's wireless technology and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) major Red Snapper.

YouSnapper aims to be present in all the 12 cities where You Telecom's fibre optic network offers internet solutions for data and voice services. The company plans to extend its wireless connectivity in all these cities.

'To fund this expansion, we plan to tap either the capital market or might look at raising capital from our Malaysian source. We have plans to cover ten cities this financial year. For this, we will need an initial investment of Rs 80 crore,' said Braham Singh, CEO, YouSnapper.

He also feels the current volatility in the market will not deter the firm in coming out with an initial public offering. 'If the company has a good business plan, investors will be interested in it,' said Singh.

With the expansion of wireless services, the immediate market for You Telecom is the entire population in residing in these 12 cities estimated to be around 60 million. 'Even if 50 per cent of them are potential customers, there is a realistic opportunity to double the customer base in the next 12-18 months,' said Singh. You Telecom has already covered over 1,75,000 customers in these cities.

'We have started the work in four cities and expect the work to be completed by August-September. For immediate deployment, the company has raised funds internally. We will look at the various options we have for the rest,' said Singh.

With this expansion, the company expects revenues to double in the next 18 months from about Rs 100 crore at present.