Excl: Online tech support firm iYogi in talks to raise $60M in pre-IPO round

Gurgaon- and New York-based iYogi Technical Services Pvt Ltd, which provides remote and on-site tech support services, is in talks to raise $60 million in a pre-IPO round of funding from private equity investors. At least two sources briefed with the matter confirmed the news, adding that existing investors will also co-invest in the new round.

An email sent to iYogi co-founder and CEO Uday Challu did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this article. In December 2010, iYogi had raised $30 million in Series D round of funding led by Sequoia Capital India. At the time, the company had announced that it would also be looking to list in the US within 6-12 months. However, it deferred the plan—due to a sluggish market—without specifying a time frame as to when the company would look to do the same in the future.

Other investors in the company include Canaan, SVB Capital Partners, SAP Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. In an earlier interview, Challu had mentioned that the firm was clocking $100 million in revenues and was looking to expand its reach across Indian and European markets.

Set up in 2007 by Challu and Vishal Dhar (president - marketing), iYogi is a leading provider of online subscription-based technical support services offered directly to consumers and small businesses across a range of computing and communications devices and software. Challu is a graduate in Economics from Delhi University and has close to three decades of experience in the IT industry.

In the past, he had co-founded Concordia Consulting and IQ Resource, a niche outsourcing company with a focus on B2B media. His partner Dhar was CEO of Friday Corp, prior to co-founding iYogi. Earlier, he was managing director at Text100 India, and was also part of the founding team at IQ Resource.

Leveraging its digital service cloud platform, iYogi delivers on-demand support services to hundreds of thousands of subscribers globally. The company also recently launched on-ground support services across the continental US. iYogi's customer base is spread across the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and the GCC, and the company mainly competes with Geek Squad (a subsidiary of Best Buy, one of the leading US consumer electronics retailers) and PlumChoice in the US, and eTechies in India.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)