Rajesh Jain, a pioneer in the Internet landscape of India – who built and sold a dotcom business in mid-1990s – is now trying to scale a second venture, Netcore Cloud. His current venture is a global marketing technology company that offers AI-powered marketing automation and analytics solutions.
The entrepreneur had made it big in the last decade of the 20 th century when he built IndiaWorld and sold it to Satyam Infoway for $115 million in 1999. Subsequently, he worked for a little over a decade at the intersection of technology and politics.
As a part of the ‘Friends of BJP’, he helped the then CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, in his bid for national office, setting up the backend technology backbone, which enabled the saffron party to reach out to voters. He also set up and ran a team of 100 people to help Modi’s 2014 successful prime ministerial bid.
In the recent past, Jain has re-focussed on his venture Netcore Cloud, which was floated in 2007, but was largely dormant for a nearly a decade. “We have a professional CEO to run the organisation and we are a ‘Proficorn’ – profitable, private, bootstrapped and highly valued,” says the founder of the company.
Netcore today serves more than 5000 Indian and international corporates, and sends more than 20 billion messages (e-mails and SMSes) monthly through its gateways. Apart from that, Rajesh says the company also provides actionable analytics, real-time reporting and quick-to-implement solutions across channels. In its applicable segments, it competes with heavyweights, such as MailChimp, Campaign & Marketo Engage by Adobe, Marketing Cloud by Salesforce, CX marketing by Oracle, and even offerings by other Indian players such as Unica by HCL.
Jain says three things set Netcore apart from competition. “We have a full stack integrated solution. Our pricing is very competitive and our service levels are higher.” The company has made three acquisitions in the recent past, including AI-based product discovery platform company Unbxd for $100 million in March this year.
Netcore says Netcore is profitable and all acquisitions have been funded through internal investments and accruals. It is now looking to list itself on the Indian bourses. “We will look at a concrete time line for listing in February 2023. I am confident of getting a better valuation (here) than some of the international ones,” he added. However, whether one of the dotcom pioneers will be able to pull off an encore with Netcore remains to be seen.
