CBay raises Rs 10 crore from Fabiani, Templeton
Financial Express Thursday, June 15, 2000
Sudipto Dey

Mumbai: Medical transcription company CBay Systems, with presence in Bangalore and Washington, has sold off around 20 per cent stake to NRI investor Harish Fabiani and Templeton Capital Partners for around Rs 10 crore. In a major expansion and consolidation drive, the 18-month old company plans to swell its Indian manpower base - through franchisees and direct route - to over 10,000 over the next three years. Also in the pipeline are a couple of acquisitions in the United States and a strategic stake in franchisees involved in back-office operations and training.

Speaking with eFe, CBay Systems chief Raman Kumar said the company was holding talks with several leading FMCG companies seeking to enter the medical transcription business for strategic tie-ups. Kumar said the company was in the business of conversion of voice into text and database. This includes medical transcription services and training. Kumar said CBay was putting in place an application service portal, which would enable individual medical practitioners to avail of transcription facilities online. To begin with, the portal was slated for launch in the US market later this month.

Kumar said the market for medical transcription services to individual practitioners was estimated to be around $9 billion. As of date most transcription services were directed at hospitals and institutions. CBay is also in the process of putting up a voice recognition platform for South East Asia in association with some Korean companies. The number of exclusive CBay franchisees which are into back-end operations and training are slated to double in course of the year from the present level of 30, Kumar said.

After consolidating operations, there will be two type of franchisees - the bigger ones will employ up to 1,000 technical staff each while the smaller ones may go up to 100. As part of consolidation drive, talks are on to take around 26 per cent stake in some of the bigger franchisees.