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Info Edge, a Mumbai, India-based web conglomerate, has filed a draft prospectus with the Securities Exchange Board of India for an initial public offering with plans to raise $29 million.

The date of the offering hasn’t been set, but it’s expected to be soon. The company is in “silent” mode and won’t comment to the media on the issue.

Info Edge owns leading jobs portal Naukri.com, matrimonial site Jeevansathi.com, and a property web upstart, 99acres.com. The company is also looking at selling shares through a pre-IPO placement.

Jeevansathi.comThe company is also looking at selling shares through a pre-IPO placement.

Existing investors in Info Edge are not selling their own shares in the IPO. After the offering, the promoters’ share will drop to 58.1 percent from 78.6 percent. ICICI Venture, an early investor in the company, will own 7.9 percent instead of the present 9.8 percent.

According to the draft prospectus, Sherpalo Ventures of Ram Shriram and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers have invested $4.6 million in the company. Info Edge had sales of $18.6 million and net profit of $3 million in 2005-06, the document said.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

The last time an Indian dot-com went public was in 2000. That was Rediff.com, a portal catering to India and Indians in the U.S. This company reported profit of $1.2 million on sales of $18 million in fiscal 2006.

There’s been speculation that more dot-com IPOs are imminent in India as the number of Internet users rise.

“India is China five years ago. The time is ripe for investing in Internet properties,” Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, said earlier this year, when his firm invested an estimated $5 million in travel portal Yatra.

The Internet user base in India grew 54 percent during the last year. There were 38.5 million users expected between 2005 and 2006, up from 25 million the year before. According to the Internet & Mobile Association of India, the total e-commerce market in India will touch $262 million in 2006, and nearly double to $500 million the following year.

Factors contributing to the growth include: falling broadband prices—as low as $5 per month; the availability of $200 PCs; content in regional Indian languages; and a jump in VoIP.

Contact the writer:KShah@RedHerring.com