Ittiam Systems Pvt Ltd, an Indian technology start-up that makes digital processors powering mobile phones and portable video players, plans to raise $5.0 million within the next six months in a second round of funding.
In the first round in 2001, Global Technology Ventures, an Indian fund co-owned by Bank of America Equity Partners, invested the same amount in return for a minority stake.
"We are in discussions with a couple of serious investors including global financial institutions, strategic investors and a consortium of companies," Chief Executive Officer Srini Rajam told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday.
Ittiam is among a clutch of Indian firms aiming to grab a slice of the global market for software found in number-crunching digital signal processors that go into the heart of consumer electronics such as personal digital assistants and MP3 players.
Bangalore-based Ittiam, short for "I Think Therefore I am", has about 25 clients, including Fortune 100 companies in the semiconductor and electronic equipment sectors. It employs about 80 engineers and aims to expand this to 120 in the year to March.
Rajam, who was involved in developing software similar to Ittiam's as the head of Texas Instruments' Indian development centre, founded the start-up in 2001 during the dot-com shakeout.
Texas Instruments, the world's biggest maker of mobile phone chips, set up its development centre in India in the mid-1980s, pioneering the trend of U.S. firms launching technology centres in India, and Rajam played a vital role in its inception.
"The new investment will give us the ability to take additional products to the market and help us expand operations globally," he said.
Rajam said Ittiam is likely to report a small net profit in the fiscal year to March 2004, but did not provide estimates.
Earlier this year, it licensed its media processing technology for use in several of privately held US-based Veo Inc's products such as handheld cameras.
