The company plans to invest the capital from the second round in technology as well as acquisitions, according to Mr Gehlot.

IndiaBulls and TV 18 recently called off a deal which called for Indiabulls to place a 26 per cent stake with TV 18 in return for a Rs 35 crore investment from TV18. Rs 20 crore of this was a cash investment while Rs 15 crore was in terms of endorsement rights whereby IndiaBulls would hold certain advertising rights on CNBC.

"We decided to mutually call off the deal since the exclusive clause would have meant that TV 18 would have had to go with one e-broking company while we would have been restricted to one media company", says Mr Gehlot.

Industry sources however, tell another tale. "In the current market situation Rs 35 crore for a 26 per cent stake was possibly too high a price for TV 18 and this must have prompted a rethink on the deal", says one dotcom entrepreneur.

Mr Hresh Chawla, CEO, TV 18, however says "the e-broking space is changing rapidly and we want to wait and see how the sector shapes up, we didn't want to get tied down to one broker at this juncture". Industry observers also feel that IndiaBulls may not have represented the high growth proposition that TV18 was looking for, given that it has a huge public market to service. "TV 18 will have to invest its vast quantum of investible capital in high growth ventures at this juncture if it is to service the public market effectively and India Bulls may not have posed that growth proposition" he explains.

Commenting on this observation, Mr Chawla says "we have no doubt about the growth potential of the e-broking space, what we are in the process of deciding is which partners we want to work with".

India Bulls plans to launch its offline operations across 8 cities by the month end and projects Rs 100 lakh in revenues from transactions by the end of the year, according to Mr Gehlot. He also adds that the company has 4,500 trading accounts and its traded volumes touch about Rs 150 lakh a day.