India’s Just Dial Ready to Raise $175 Million in IPO Next Week

I know that India’s Just Dial has been on the verge of an IPO before, but this time it’s for real. The local search engine, which now operates in seven countries and is accessible both online and by SMS, has just filed for its IPO, which will hit stock tickers on May 20th.

Just Dial seeks to raise as much as Rs 950 crore – that’s a little under US$175 million. It will list locally on the BSE, NSE, and MCX-SX markets, thereby foregoing a long anticipated US IPO. In contrast, the travel portal MakeMyTrip raised nearly $80 million in its 2010 IPO on NASDAQ.

Sequoia Capital has been a major investor in Just Dial over the years. It started up in 1994.

After Just Dial, it’s likely that BharatMatrimony and HomeShop18 will go public soon too, giving a big boost to India’s tech sector, which has previously seen few web company IPOs. But HomeShop18’s listing might not happen until 2014.

Over the weekend, Google quietly killed off its SMS search feature, which will be a shot in the arm for Just Dial and other ‘dumbphone’-oriented search services like SMSgyan.