Venture-backed eYantra Acquires Corporate Rewards Co Privilege Corner

Hyderabad-based brand merchandising and corporate gifting firm eYantra Industries Ltd has acquired Privilege Corner, a Delhi-based corporate rewards and recognition company, for an undisclosed amount. The deal for the Delhi-based company is a 100 per cent buyout cash deal. With this acquisition, Phani N Raj, founder and CEO of eYantra, and Mayank Gupta, director of the company, are joining the board Privilege Corner. However, the entity and the brand name of Privilege will be retained.

Raj has also said that eYantra is in talks with a US-based corporate rewards company for a possible acquisition, which may materialise in the next 5-6 months. It is also looking at global markets like Australia. "We will fund the acquisitions through internal accruals and the funding raised earlier," said Raj.

In 2010, eYantra raised $7.8 million (Rs 35.4 crore) in a series B round, led by Argonaut Private Equity. It raised $3.1 million from VenturEast Proactive back in 2008.

eYantra is expected to grow at 50 per cent this year and is targeting a growth of 45-50 per cent in FY13.

Gurgaon-based Privilege Corner is an 18-month-old firm started by Anshul Gupta, Nitin Mathur (co-founder of HealthPA), Harsh Azad (co-founder of Via.com) and Umang Maheshwari. The start-up has already acquired clients in IT & telecom space, providing rewards and loyalty programme solutions. Its flagship product is called the Privilege Club. Privilege Corner had also raised seed funding of $200,000 from private investors in December 2010.

According to Raj, the acquisition of Privilege Corner was done to leverage its technology, merchandising partners and clients.

"eYantra's pioneering work in setting up benefits and reward programmes for corporate houses and their employees is augmented by the acquisition of Privilege Corner, a very unique programme for employee benefit. eYantra packs a powerful bundle of thoughts for the B2B and B2C industry through its online, retail, reward & benefits and brand merchandising solutions. Speeding up, Privilege Corner will be ready to implement the solution for eYantra's 1000-plus corporate clients immediately. We have grown fast organically and are now looking forward to exponential growth with strategic acquisition to strengthen our position," said Phani Raj, founder and CEO of eYantra.

eYantra has over 14 physical stores and 32-plus online stores besides dedicated and on-demand custom-made solutions. It has more than 1000 companies in its client list, and has initiated and built programmes for companies like HCL, Microsoft, Dell, Honeywell, Nestle, HLL, HUL, Mahindra Satyam and Dr Reddy's. Besides Hyderabad, the company has other offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Pune, and currently employs 300 people.