Start-Up BlueStacks raises $7.6 Million in Series A Funding
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Santa Clara: California-based BlueStacks, which develops software that allows Android applications to run on Windows PC, has raised $7.6 million in Series A funding. Ignition Ventures, Radar Partners, Helion Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz are the investors. The company plans to display its technology at the Citrix Synergy conference and detail its ambitious plan to convince PC makers to load their software on new computers, ideally enabling tens of millions of Windows computers to run Android applications over the next couple of years. It uses virtualization, though the goal is to make all the technology stuff invisible to the user, so that all they see is a Windows PC that can also run Android applications. Rosen Sharma, CEO, BlueStacks, said that the company thinks it will find eager customers among PC makers looking to stand out from one another, while reacting to the rise of the iPad and Android. The software is a Windows machine with all the characters that entails, which means it will not have the battery life or instant start-up of an Android tablet or iPad, but it also can run all of the Windows applications in addition to those for Android. The business model of the company is focused on getting as broad distribution as it can seek payment for each PC that ships with its software. The software will support 2.2 of Android, known as Froyo, in the initial phase and will be upgraded in the future. They also plan to offer a version, which can be downloaded by the existing PC owners to run Android on their PCs.

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