Reliance Technology Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners India (NVP India) are investing in services commerce (S-commerce) company Suvidhaa. The company will use the funds to expand its service offerings into vertical markets throughout India and to improve business development and marketing efforts.

S-commerce allows consumers to purchase services such as railway ticketing, mobile recharge, air ticketing, insurance payments, bill payments, bus ticketing, loan origination, movie ticketing and many other services from nearby convenience stores. The company plans to achieve this through its technology platform, which integrates these stores to the various services providers’ systems.

Presently, Suvidhaa is associated with more than 4,000 local convenience stores across 15 states in more than 100 cities, and plans to further expand to 20,000 franchisee outlets across the country by 2009. Local convenience stores can use the Sividhaa platform with minimal computer knowledge.

Suvidhaa has tie-ups with various top Indian corporates to provide these services. Consumers can obtain services provided by leading companies including IRCTC for railway ticketing, all major airline companies, telecom services, more than 350 bus operators, multiplexes, leading financial services and insurance players. Suvidhaa also offers bill payment for utility companies in areas such as electricity, gas, telephones, and mobile. Its services also include education, filing of tax returns, e-pooja services, and credit card services. The company says that its platform has been tested for up to one million transactions per day. X