elLoka Tech to raise $10 mn

elLoka Techsolutions Private Limited, a city-based product design and manufacturing company, is looking at raising $10-million (approximately Rs 46 crore) equity investment to meet its working capital requirements and to scale up its manufacturing capabilities.

“We will start talking to our past acquaintances in the investment space from June and close the deal in three months from then,” Kota Bhaskar, president and chief technology officer of elloka, told mediapersons here on Monday.

elLoka today launched Home Computer (HC), an ultra low-power home computing device, which it claims to be the first such product to be completely designed and manufactured in India.

“HC, a compact processor priced at Rs 5,999, can be connected to a standard television or a monitor, which is then used as the display unit. The box consumes less than 5 watts of power, and comes with applications like MS Word, Excel, YouTube, Facebook, Google Docs, audio-video player and 25 megabit of user space with expandable storage option on USB sticks,” he said.

Bhaskar said the company was primarily targeting students and will be launching in the next six months a pictorial-based math concept learning content package for Class I to XII that comes in a USB stick for Rs 900.

“We have tied up with Internet service provider (ISP) Beam Telecom, which has 55,000 subscribers in Hyderabad, to bundle our product with their services. The product has been certified and approved by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited as well and talks are on with them for a similar collaboration,” he said.

Stating that elLoka was currently working with one electronics company and two in the computer original equipment manufacturer (OEM) space to push its product, Bhaskar said the company was expecting 1 million HC units to be out into the market this financial year. “We do see a lot of traction in Africa and Latin America, where the potential is close to 600,000 units a year,” he added.

elLoka is developing a seven-inch tablet PC – Palaka (slate in English) – with an in-built low-power device equipped with features like camera and video chat.

“The tablet will run on our patented operating system with Google’s Android being the other option. The prototype should be ready by September and will go for production by early October,” Bhaskar said, adding the tablet will be tentatively priced at Rs 7,000.