Hyderabad, Sept. 22,
YuppTV, the
US-based over-the-top (OTT) content player that distributes TV channels
through the Internet, will raise $20 million (Rs 120 crore) in the
second round funding in the next three months. The company is in talks
with the private equity players and it hopes to complete the process in
three months.
Serial entrepreneur and founder of the testing tools firm AppLabs Sashi Reddi invested $2.5 million (about Rs. 16
crore) to pick 10 per cent in the firm, promoted by Uday Reddy. Prior
to that, it got $5, 00,000 from family rounds to build the firm.
“We
will use the proceeds from the second round to increase our customer
base, with a focus in the Caribbean and Latin American countries. Part
of the funds would also go to acquiring a niche player,” Uday told
Business Line here.
With an Indian arm located in
Hyderabad, the company conducts research in content distribution
technologies. It employs 145 people
The firm, which
mostly serves the Indian Diaspora in the US, first found the serious
need for Indian television content while working in the Caribbean area
for Nortel. With a subscribe base of about 80 lakhs including about one
lakh paid users, the firm distributes about 200 channels in 12 Indian
languages and English.
It made revenues of $10-11 million last year ended December 2013.
“Our
technological solutions help you to access the content you missed to
watch from our cloud storage. Our development team works on improving
the content distribution platform and creation of apps (applications)
that work on different mobile operating systems,” Uday said.
Media Player
The
company has recently launched YuppTV Media Player that allows the users
to switch from one gadget to another yet continue to watch the same
programme.
Uday said there was a significant change
in the customer preferences. “Watching TV is no longer a linear,
top-down distribution of content. “Content distribution will become more
and more driven by consumers,” he said. www.yupptv.com
