Match Point
Forbes India|December 8, 2017

Murugavel Janakiraman’s Matrimony.com, launched with an initial focus on the Tamil community, is now a market leader in online matchmaking

Anshul Dhamija
Match Point

In 1993, when Murugavel Janakiraman secured a job as a software engineer with Polaris Consulting & Services Limited in Chennai, he was able to fulfil a childhood dream: To rent a house that had electricity and a toilet. A master’s degree holder in computer applications from the University of Madras (his father was a labourer at Port Trust; his education was sponsored by his uncle), Murugavel had grown up in a one-bedroom home in a chawl in Chennai’s Royapuram neighbourhood with his parents and an elder brother, and without some of the basic amenities. “For 20 years, we lived in a 300 sq ft house,” he says.

Cut to 2017 and Murugavel is now the founder and managing director of Matrimony.com Ltd, a consumer internet company that operates from a 10th floor office at the TVH Beliciaa Towers in MRC Nagar, with a sweeping view of the Marina Beach. Two more offices of the company are spread across the city, including a call centre that houses over 800 employees. He lives in an upscale housing project in Chennai (which he bought in 2004 for ₹60 lakh) and plans to “move to a bigger house in the next few years”.

What put the 47-year-old on the highway to ascendancy is Matrimony.com, a meticulously built ₹300-crore revenue company (the bulk of which is earned from its online matchmaking business), with a market cap of ₹1,970 crore. The company’s flagship matchmaking property, through which people can look up and search for prospective partners for a fee, BharatMatrimony, has 15 language-based domains; there are other properties like EliteMatrimony, AssistedMatrimony and CommunityMatrimony, offering specialised services.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 8, 2017 من Forbes India.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 8, 2017 من Forbes India.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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