Jivox to raise $15 Million, expand into Europe, SE Asia

Mumbai: Bangalore headquartered online video advertising player, Jivox, plans to raise $15 million to fuel its global expansion and launch new products, a top company official said.

"We plan to raise $15 million early-2011 to fuel our expansion. We could raise the resources from either pure-play venture capital firms or strategic partners who can add value to our business," Jivox India's managing director, Naren Nachiappan, said in Mumbai.

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The company which presently enjoys a 70 percent market share in the Indian online video market, will use the proceeds to expand its footprint into the high-potential European and south-east Asian markets by mid-2011, he said.

"We could enter these geographies through an acquisition," Nachiappan said, adding "we have short-listed a few target companies but have not yet initiated discussions with them."

"It is still early days. We will start negotiations in a few months and appoint an investment banker in the latter part of this year," he said.

The company also plans to diversify from online video to mobile video and video content management, both of which it feels hold an immense potential.

Mobile bandwidth in India should be good enough in a year's time to support video," Nachiappan said.

Jivox has already seen two rounds of funding, the latest of $4 million by U.S. based Opus Capital and Helion Venture Partners. It had earlier got a funding of $11 million in 2008 from the same firms.

"Both Opus and Helion have given us a second round of funding which indicates their confidence in us. We don't see any problem in raising resources in the future," he said.

Jivox recently entered into an exclusive partnership with HT Media to deliver video advertisements on the latter's on-line properties--HindustanTimes.com, LiveMint.com and DesiMartini.com.
Source: PTI