The company plans to set up its offices in almost all major cities of the country in an attempt to set up a strong offline business structure. The second round of venture funding will go towards investments in technology, brand-building and infrastructure development.

``Our focus is to make IndiaBulls the premier retail financial services company. We want to provide not just online brokerage, but the entire suite of financial services and products through various media. Internet happens to be only one of them,'' IndiaBulls chief executive and co-founder Sameer Gehlaut told eFE.

It presently has seven outlets in five cities which it plans to increase to 35 outlets in 25 cities by year-end-and further to 100 in the next one year. These offices will cater to the retail investor, high net worth individuals and sub-brokers and function as separate profit centres, besides supporting online sales.

``Risk management and ownership of the client are very crucial in our business. Hence, we are not appointing any franchisees and don't want to either part with the client's information, or pass the control to anybody,'' said Gehlaut.

The company will soon also venture into mutual funds. ``Initially, these will be devised by some private companies. As and when we acquire the capability, we want to make them IndiaBulls proprietary funds. This is a very lucrative business for us because we are in a position to earn 300 basis points from our clients on an annual basis. Initially, we will take out index funds and on some sector-specific funds like IT, communications and pharma, and later, actively manage funds ourselves,'' said Gehlaut.

IndiaBulls is presently restricting itself to investment products, but plans to foray into the liability products such as loans and the insurance products also. It is already talking to certain leading companies in these segments for tie-ups.

It has invested $1 million in setting up its online systems. The site has a capacity of handling 50,000 registered users simultaneously against which it has so far notched up 4,000 users. It is targeting to acquire 40,000 online users by the year-end, two lakh by end 2001 and a million by the end of year three.

While high-pitch media advertising is not on its agenda, IndiaBulls plans to enter more content-sharing and marketing tie-ups like the one it signed up with Yahoo!, according to Gehlaut.

``Our Delhi offline business is generating Rs 1 lakh a day, while the online business at present is at Rs 50,000 a day and growing exponentially. Our operating cost is very low. In fact, it is already more than covered by the revenues we are generating,'' said Gehlaut.

Interestingly, almost 75 per cent of IndiaBulls' revenue this year will accrue from offline business. But next year, online business will start contributing about 50 per cent revenue to the kitty, hoped Gehlaut.