Novatium to raise $10 million

Novatium Solutions Private Limited, a Chennai-based affordable and pervasive computing services provider, is planning to raise a $10-million (approximately Rs 47 crore) growth fund during this quarter.

“We are in active discussion with a few venture capital companies and expect to close the deal during this quarter. The growth fund will enable us to start selling out Nova Navigator – an obsolescence-proof computing service comprising a set-top-box, keyboard and mouse that can support multiple operating systems – internationally, besides reaching every nook and cranny of India,” Alok Singh, chief executive officer of Novatium Solutions, told Business Standard.

The five-year-old company, incubated at Indian Institute of Technology-Chennai, had raised an undisclosed sum in 2007 from New Enterprise Associates, a US-based venture capital fund, and it deployed for expanding its operations beyond Chennai.

Having collaborated with Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Tata Teleservices Limited to bundle its product with their broadband connections, Novatium is now looking at partnering other major telecom operators in the country.

“We are currently in talks with all the major telecom operators in the country and plan to sign up three-four Tier-I players in the next couple of months,” he said, adding the company, which has a presence in over 100 cities across the country, planned to go pan-India including B and C centres during the second quarter of the next financial year.

Singh said the company had already conducted trails with telcos abroad in countries like Mauritius and Thailand and would start launching its services commercially during March.

“We have seen a significant traction in terms of demand from the overseas market as well. We have five to six countries in the pipeline, which include Southeast Asia, China, Latin America, West Asia and Europe, where we plan to go with three-four large telecom companies,” Singh said, adding except customisation, local language and content, its primary service will be the same.

As per a Gartner report, computing-as-a-service, software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and desktop-as-a-service alone is going to be around $45 billion in the next five years, globally.

“We are selling 7,000 to 8,000 units of our product per month in India alone, while the demand is for 25,000 units per month, on the back of simplicity of such products and the relevance of Internet in day-to-day lives. Next year, we want to be touching around 250,000 units,” Singh said.