Friday, July 25, 2008

iYogi Secures $9.5M in Series B Funding Led by SAP Ventures, With Follow-on Investment from Canaan Partners and SVB India Capital Partners

iYogi Secures $9.5M in Series B Funding Led by SAP Ventures, With Follow-on Investment from Canaan Partners and SVB India Capital Partners
iYogi, a Direct-to-Consumer and Small Business Technical Support Provider, Paves the Way for Personal Offshoring to Become India’s Next Success Story

New York, 24 July, 2008: Personal Offshoring, which is driving the next wave of India’s outsourcing success story, got a huge boost today when iYogi - a remote technical support provider from India - raised $ 9.5 million in Series B financing from SAP Ventures, a division of SAP AG, Canaan Partners and SVB India Capital Partners, a venture fund affiliate of Silicon Valley Bank.

iYogi (www.iyogi.net) delivers technical support services directly to consumers and small businesses and is the first, global, technical support brand based out of India. The company offers its customers an unlimited, annual service subscription for $119.99 per desktop that includes support for a wide range of technologies, including PC hardware Microsoft Windows operating system, software applications, peripherals and multifunctional devices.

“Personal Offshoring has created new investment opportunities in India with incredible growth potential,” said Doug Higgins, partner at SAP Ventures. “It is very exciting to see companies like iYogi challenging the traditional enterprise-focused offshore-service delivery model by creating a consumer-focused, direct-to-customer personal offshore model. iYogi is one of the fastest-growing companies in this market segment, and we look forward to working with them to create India’s next success story.”

“Our focus on the customer experience has helped us achieve a 93 percent satisfaction rate across more than 50,000 customers,” said Uday Challu, CEO of iYogi. “We are delighted to have the support of three terrific investors as we increase our market share and continue to provide the best technical support experience possible for our customers.”

iYogi will use the funds to fuel its expansion into 12 new regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, and to increase its delivery of new services including PC recovery, anti-virus/spyware, data back-up and PC optimization.

“As consumer technologies grow in sophistication, consumers will be seeking the kind of home IT support services – including remote services offered by companies such as iYogi – to help them solve their most complex problems,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst, Parks Associates. “In primary research, we found more than one-third of consumers are willing to pay for competent and professional remote support services, and 60% express a strong interest in software solutions – what we refer to as ‘PC Dashboards’ – that automate many basic PC performance enhancement and troubleshooting features, solving many PC-related problems before they even are noticed by end-users.”

iYogi had previously raised $3.1 million in Series A financing from Canaan Partners and SVB in April of last year. “iYogi is one of the most promising investments for Canaan Partners,” said Alok Mittal, managing director of India at Canaan Partners. “Third-party, vendor-independent technical support is an exciting new service category, witnessing explosive growth. Customers are looking beyond the traditional vendor-provided support to remote channels for better problem resolution, faster service, and greater overall satisfaction. iYogi has created an incredible value proposition and price offering for its customers that is hard to beat.”

”Several next generation outsourcing companies from India are delivering a range of personal offshoring services for individuals and small businesses in the U.S. including online tutoring, tax preparation, remote executive assistance and research services,” said Suresh Shanmugham, managing director of SVB India Capital Partners, a venture fund affiliate of Silicon Valley Bank. “iYogi has leveraged the technical skills available in India along with process expertise to scale as a global technical support provider for millions faced with increasingly complex technology”.


About SAP Ventures
SAP Ventures invests in innovative and disruptive software and services companies globally. We pursue opportunities across all stages for outstanding financial return. Our goal is to bring substantial benefit to all parties by facilitating interaction between portfolio companies and SAP and its ecosystem of customers and partners. SAP Ventures has a successful track record of building industry-leading companies by partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and top-tier venture capital firms since 1996. For more information, visit www.sapventures.com.

About Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners is a global venture capital firm specializing in early-stage information technology and life sciences companies. Founded in 1987, Canaan Partners has $2.4 billion capital under management and has invested in more than 240 companies, completed 63 mergers and acquisitions, and brought over 50 companies public. The firm catalyzes the development of innovative mobile, Internet, CleanTech, networking, semiconductor, enterprise software and services, biotechnology and medical technologies to build next-generation market leaders. Canaan was an early investor in Acme Packet (APKT), Aperto Networks, BharatMatrimony.com, Blurb, DoubleClick (DCLK), ID Analytics, Match.com and SuccessFactors, along with dozens of other market-leading companies. Canaan is headquartered in Menlo Park, California and also has offices in Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information visit: www.canaan.com.

SVB India Capital Partners Fund and Silicon Valley Bank

SVB India Capital Partners Fund is a $54 million equity fund that is focused on Indian companies and co-invests across industries and stages with top-tier venture capital firms. Silicon Valley Bank is the premier commercial bank for emerging, growth and mature companies in the technology, life science, private equity and premium wine industries. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., the company serves clients around the world through 27 U.S. offices and five international operations. Silicon Valley Bank is a member of global financial services firm SVB Financial Group, with SVB Analytics, SVB Capital, SVB Global and SVB Private Client Services. More information on the company can be found at www.svb.com.

About iYogi

iYogi is the first direct-to-consumer and small business technical support service from India. Providing an annual unlimited subscription to technical support for $119.99 per year, iYogi now boasts more than 50,000 customers. The company employs 450 professionals servicing customers in the U.S., U.K., Canada fast expanding to 12 new geographies across the globe. iYogi’s resolution rate of 87 percent and customer satisfaction rate of 93 percent are amongst the highest published benchmarks in the industry. For further information, please visit www.iyogi.net.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. iYogi shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.



Contact:



Company Name:
iYogi Technical Services Pvt Ltd

Address:
iYogi Inc.
12 Desbrosses Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013

Toll Free no: 1-800-237-3901

Work Number: 1-212-229-0901

F ax Number: 1-888-867-2715

Friday, July 11, 2008

Disinfecting a spyware-riddled PC

What do I do if I suspect someone is controlling my PC? When my IP address has been changed without my knowledge? My boot-up process is getting harder unless I unplug the Ethernet cable and the CPU is at 100 per cent every time I open any program. There is also a new connection to the Internet that is between my connection and the net I know was not there a month ago. When I try to register my e-mail address the programs say it's invalid and does not match whatever it has to compare it to. -- Teresa Hurst.

It sounds like some Remote spyware removal or other unwelcome software has gotten installed on your computer. You need to do some process of elimination to see where the problem is. I would recommend that you start the computer without the Ethernet cable being connected and to start up the operating system on your computer in "safe" mode to minimize what is getting automatically started.

If you are comfortable with using a network sniffer such as Wireshark or one of the commercially available packages, try putting a hub (not switch) between the infected computer and your internet connection and let Wireshark tell you what it is finding. This could help in identifying the exact cause of the problem and serve as a good learning experience in terms of doing some detective work on finding the cause of a problem.

On a different computer, download several different antispyware utilities such as Spybot and Ad-Aware. There are several very good packages out there to choose from. The main thing is to run at least two different packages, preferably three, because no single app will remove all the spyware in the wild these days.

Burn these apps onto a CD and then install them onto the computer you have booted into safe mode. Since you are running without a network connection for the time being, you will also way to download any signature or other updates and install those before running the software for the first time. After you have run each of the spyware detection programs each once, run them at least one more time apiece until you have a clean report from each. This may sound like extra work, but I have seen where one spyware removal program will remove a particular package allowing the same or different spyware removal which is a powerful defense against spyware package to see another piece of spyware/adware that went previously undetected.

Once you have done this, do the same thing with anti-virus software. McAfee offers a basic detection/removal package that will go after the nastier viruses out there that is free for downloading. ClamAv, an open source virus detection/prevention package, is another one that I would suggest trying as well. Once you have received a clean report from the different packages you have tried, you should be able to connect the ethernet cable back to the computer, reboot it and be back to fairly normal operation.

Once you are back to normal, I would suggest periodically running the spyware/adware detection programs. Make sure you have the latest signature/program updates installed so that you have the best chance of catching/preventing problems. You should also run a software firewall, but not the Windows Firewall that comes with XP/Vista - It can still let some bad things happen. I would suggest using either ZoneAlarm or Comodo Firewall Pro as these can alert you to outbound access that doesn't appear to be normal and they go one step further and that is to learn what is "normal" for your computer.

While you are trying to identify the cause of the problem, I would also suggest looking at www.spywarewarrior.com. I have used this Web site in the past for good information. Depending on what you find, you may be referred to additional utilities as Hijack This, which I have used in the past to find/eliminate additional problems not found by some of the other tools that I have mentioned here.

Source : computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;863502618;fp;2;fpid;3