Excl: Online tech support firm iYogi in talks to raise $27M more 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 $27 million in a pre-IPO round of funding from a strategic investor, sources privy to the development told VCCircle.

This follows a $28 million Series E round of funding closed three months ago where Madison India Capital led the round and was joined by Axon Partners and existing investors.

It is now in advanced talks to raise another $27 million from a set of new investors. Techcircle.in/VCCircle had first reported that the firm is looking to scoop up around $60 million before its IPO.

With the fresh funding, the company plans to drive growth into new markets globally with its digital service cloud (DSC), a tech support solution for telcos and OEMs to help support automation.

It launched its services in Spain in January this year, through a partnership with Telefonica. Movistar, a Telefonica company launched a co-branded tech support service called 'Guru' for Spanish consumers in collaboration with iYogi.

Also recently, it entered into a strategic partnership with internet service provider Spectranet for delivering customer network management and technical support for Spectranet home and business customers in India.

Additionally, DSC is a made-in-the-real-world platform for supporting adoption of Internet of Things (IoT). It creates engagement through intelligent support interventions and manages different IoT use cases across multiple industries that powers go-to-market strategies and real-world adoption in the smart home, automobiles, energy, and health monitoring space.

Set up in 2007 by Uday Challu and Vishal Dhar (president – marketing), iYogi is a 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 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.

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 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.

It has raised around $86 million to date.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)