New Delhi, Sept. 20: A venture capital firm is pouring over Rs 30 crore into the idea that movie-lovers in India will use the Internet to rent DVDs.

Seventymm.com, a DVD rental business started by Raghav Kher, a former Microsoft executive, has set up base in Delhi, having tested the waters for six months in Bangalore. Next on its screen are Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. Smaller cities like Coimbatore and Pune will be tapped, too.

Seventymm might be the country’s first online DVD rental company, but beyond the Web, others have already bet big on the business. Cinema Paradiso, for example, has stores in Calcutta, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.

They could change the way DVDs are rented. Usually, one saunters to a neighbourhood DVD store only to pick up, in most cases, a pirated copy.

However, there are some legal hurdles. Motion Pictures Association (MPA) sued Paradiso over allegations that it stocks original prints without permission from the association or Hollywood movie companies. Seventymm claims its business is “totally legal”.

Kher says he wagered some of his personal cash on the DVD rental venture, but the first $2 million came from a US venture firm. On Tuesday, he announced the second infusion of $7 million (Rs 32 crore), from Matrix Partners India.

Seventymm is promising handsome returns, saying it will pay back investors “several fold”.

In Bangalore, it claims 7,500 subscribers, many of whom have gone for the unlimited option under which as many films are rented as one wants for Rs 549 a month.

You take your pick from a bank of 10,000 films. Orders are placed online, on phone or through SMS, and the movies are delivered at home or office. In five years, Kher says, you could be downloading them on to your computer or mobile.