Remote consumer tech support company iYogi has raised $30 million led by Sequoia Capital India for its series-D round of funding. The company is also planning an IPO, which could come as soon as the next six months.
Existing backers like Canaan, SVB Capital Partners, SAP Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson also participated in this round. The new round will take the overall funding raised by the company to $58 million.
"We are looking at a listing in the next 6-12 months," said Uday Challu, CEO and founder of iYogi. He added that the company may also look at a US listing. He also said that they are not actively eyeing any acquisition as the company is on a high organic growth trajectory. But iYogi is open to any compelling opportunity that comes their way, added Challu. There has been a significant step up in the valuation from the last round, he said.
The new round of investment in iYogi will expand services outside the existing consumer market and the Windows Operating System platform. The Gurgaon-based firm also targets the global SME market and mobile consumer devices. The new target geographies where iYogi plans a rollout include Europe, the Middle East and India in addition to its existing services in North America, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
"We have invested significantly in extending our game-changing platform-as-a-service delivery model and believe that we have established the new market standard of tech support and related
services through a consistent user experience. Our planned expansion includes making our services available in any geography, across any platform, for any device, and at affordable price-points," said Uday Challu, Co-founder and CEO of iYogi.
iYogi has had a 300% growth for its premium annual subscription service alone, and has solved more than 2 million tech problems for consumers since its inception. The firm has increased its tech experts from 1,200 to more than 5,000, all deployed on iMantra, in the last year. Challu is confident of increasing the head count to 7,500 people by end of calendar year 2011.
"While their growth is certainly impressive, what I particularly admire is the constant innovation of its platform-as-a-service delivery model that is predictive and evolving based on customer insights. We are excited by the large and growing market opportunity for remote tech support services, and iYogis success in reaching consumers across geographies, while injecting itself into the support universe of large OEM's and security companies," said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India.
iYogi has raised $15 million in its series-C round from DFJ earlier this year. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm earlier raised $3.1 million and $9.5 million in two rounds in 2007 and 2008, respectively. This is the fourth round of capital infusion into the company and none of the investors have exited in the latest round, added Challu.
