Says Ganesh Krishnamurthy, project director, Indiataj.com: ``We are focusing on four core verticals: Indian Roots, Personal Services, Travel portal and Entertainment.'' The web portal will launch the other three vortals in the next two months.

In the last 20 months, the horizontal portal has incurred an investment of around Rs 2 crore with over 50 per cent of the expenditure in securing technological and hardware support. The portal is being managed by a team of 38, including 25 technical personnel.

Says Krishnamurthy, ``We are looking for Rs 25 crore in the first phase of VC funding. Talks are on with financiers and we hope to finalise funding in the next couple of months.''

Adds Dinesh Kumar, financial consultant to Indiataj.com, ``We expect to break even by March 2001-02 on an expenditure of Rs 50 crore.''

In the next two years, Indiataj.com is expected to spend around Rs 10 crore (in different phases) in promoting the brand and creating awareness about its offerings.

Besides targeting the domestic market, the Indian Roots will also focus on the Indian diaspora. According to Sunita Vohra, managing director, ``The population of non-resident Indians and Indians having foreign citizenship is estimated at over 20 million today. Indian Roots will help them discover their cultural roots in India.''

Indian Roots is looking at two distinct revenue streams: one, when a user uploads VDO formats, pricing for which is in specific seconders. Once the channel gains `reasonable mass' in next four to five weeks, the pricing is expected to begin upwards of Rs 1,100.

Second, the vertical will charge Rs 1,000-plus for providing services like procuring information about the site-users' ancestors from priests in pilgrimage centres like Varanasi, Deogarh, Haridwar etc.

Indian Roots expects around 1 per cent of an expected 1 lakh-plus site-visitors to upload VDO in the next six months. Says Kumar, ``The potential for services is immense and we will soon target NRIs based in the middle-east and the US in conjunction with our market research agencies.'' Some of Indian Roots' offerings for families are: create family tree, album, video, will, ceremonies, chat, history, news, message board.

Indiataj.com's other revenue drivers will be channels like Personal Services, Travel portal and Entertainment (with related channels like fashion and Model). All these verticals are expected to have a distinct e-commerce focus and a raft of offline marketing alliances.

Personal Services will be launched next month. Under this, the site will provide executive assistance to NRIs having their families and properties in India. It will tie up with a host of service providers who can ensure high level of deliverables. Also, it will hire around 60-70 frontline personnel, who will undergo specialised training in hospitality and customer care.

Similarly, its travel portal will adopt a platform of a spiritual destination for NRIs and foreign tourists. ``We're talking to Indian Airlines, ITDC, a chain of hotels and fleet operators for alliances,'' says Kumar.

In the arena of entertainment, the vertical will allow users to download music in MP3 format and also let them gift a song to their friends and relatives. ``We will begin with around 200-400 Hindi titles,'' says Vohra.