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| Hidden Reflex scouting for PE partner |
| Ravi Menon / Chennai/ Bangalore Jul 26, 2010, 00:01 IST |
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Internet software start-up Hidden Reflex is scouting for a private equity partner as part of its plans to raise Series A funding in the range of $1-$2.5 million for its expansion plans. The company is set to seriously consider the possibility of raising funds through equity dilution starting next week, Hidden Reflex founder and chief executive officer Alok Bhardwaj said.
The Bangalore-based company, which launched its Epic browser last week to a successful response, is looking at bringing in a private equity partner with expertise in the Internet start-up space, Bhardwaj said. “We received funding proposals from a few PEs earlier, but were concentrating more on the development and launch of Epic, which essentially runs on the open source Mozilla engine. We hope to close Series A funding by the end of August, or more realistically, by September,” Bhardwaj said.
The company launched its free Epic browser in the second week of July, customised for India, with features like built-in anti-virus protection, language Unicode, free word processor and video sidebar. The emphasis has been on piping in India-centric content like regional news through over 1,500 applications and widgets to track Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, stock and trading portfolios, book travel tickets, live TV and video streaming.
The browser also offers support for 12 languages like, Hindi, Bangla, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Nepali. The users will not need to switch between various programmes for accessing these services. Users can create documents in 12 regional Indian languages using the sidebar.
The browser will also offer national and regional news from popular publications and television channels. Users also have access to Mozilla’s huge database of plug-ins.
Since the July 15 launch, the Epic browser has logged about 200,000 unique downloads, according to information provided by Hidden Reflex. Work on the mobile version of Epic is on currently, Bhardwaj said. “We were keen to offer a product with a unique Indian identity and the response to Epic has been encouraging. Downloading videos has become much faster with the video sidebar,” Bhardwaj said.
Founded by Alok Bhardwaj and bootstrapped privately in 2007, Hidden Reflex presently has 11 employees and expects to grow fivefold by the end of 2011.
Despite significant falls in market share down the years, thanks to Firefox and the entry of Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer commanded 53 per cent of the worldwide browser market, according to data for June from website analytics firm StatCounter. Firefox presently controls 31 per cent with Opera and Chrome making up the remainder.
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