How he started 10 firms in 10 years

"Put your finger there...and you can see the fingerprint captured on screen." I was distinctly uncomfortable with this test run on one of my fingers, which reminded me of horrid pre-incarceration movie scenes but Alok Kumar Agarwal was oblivious to that.

He was excited about uploading tens of hundreds of such fingerprints - six from each person - for the National Skills Registry, earning a service fee in the process. The registry is a Nasscom-backed database aimed at giving confidence to international companies outsourcing to India who can know the employee.

That is the latest service that Agarwal's decade-old Alankit group, which began as a registrar and share transfer agent, has added to its portfolio.

Through 10-odd subsidiary companies - "it was a regulatory requirement" - Agarwal offers trading facilities for equities in the cash and futures market (BSE, NSE) and commodities (NCDEX, MCX), works as an insurance broker, processes cash-less hospitalisation claims as a third party administrator (TPA), has a facilitation centre for TIN (tax information network), is licensed to work as an e-return intermediary and also to
offer portfolio management and investment advisory services, on a business model, which has similarities with peers like Karvy, Motilal Oswal and Geojit.

Alankit has also gone international, having bought membership of the seven-month old Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange  - "capital account convertibility (free exchange of currencies) will come in soon and I want to be ready" - where Agarwal has been back-patted for being among the most active trading members.

It seems an unrelated business, but he tells me that retailing medicine - they have one store so far - is a "natural progression" for Alankit since such retail is also a service-led business.

A chartered accountant by profession, and from a family of professionals, he invested his all - Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) in 1995 - to get into the service business because he knew it would expand.

Today, with his debt-free group clocking revenues of Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million), he talks about establishing a pan-Indian presence. That would require serious capital - about Rs 20-25 lakh per office (same as each Cafe Coffee Day outlet).

"Venture capital perhaps?" "No. They will not give me the deserved valuation," says the
street-smart businessman.

"Is this the time to expand, given the dull sentiment?"

"I always try to enter a business in the dull phase. You can then establish yourself and reap the rewards in the boom phase," he says, mumbling something about an IPO.

Ten years. Ten companies. An eponymous building, Alankit House, in the heart of Delhi. And an IPO somewhere on the horizon. Not bad at all for a first-generation entrepreneur who claims to have no godfather, and no aversion to fingerprints.