PUNE: Indra Networks Inc., a new wave IT company established in September
2000 with the goal to develop new products in the Internet infrastructure area,
has received a funding of $1 million from an independent investor Vikram Modak
and Intel Capital. The investment will be used to expand the company’s R&D
center for developing computers and servers to speed up the response time of
busy Web sites.
"Intel’s investment will help boost the development of the product
line," said Indira Networks chief technology officer Monish Shah. Beyond
the investment, however, we stand to gain a great deal from Intel’s insight
into technology trends and introductions to other companies in Intel Capital’s
investment portfolio, he said. Intel’s director (South India) Avtar Saini
said: "With the Internet becoming ubiquitous, the speed at which Web sites
can deliver content to an exponentially increasing audience becomes ever more
critical."
Anupam Bhide and Monish Shah established the Indra Networks Inc., in
September 2000. Indra Networks has its principal office in the Silicon Valley
and has a wholly owned subsidiary Indra Networks Private Limited, in Pune. This
center will also take up product development.
The company is presently developing `Web Accelerator’ — a device that can
supplement the servers. Since these are designed for a single purpose they are
vastly more efficient and 20 times faster than ordinary Web servers are. The key
to the technology here is a new chip that is currently under development at
Indra Networks that will have a stack of Web servers accelerated by a single Web
accelerator.
The firm is expecting to have prospective clients in e-mail providers such as
Hotmail, Yahoo, search engines such as Google, Alta Vista, Excite, B2B, B2C and
C2c sites including Amazon and eBay and Web hosting ISPs of the likes of Exodus
and Digex for the product. The company, which is also expecting to get a good
response from the US, said the firm would explore the possibilities of a second
round of VC funding.
The company has projected revenues to the tune of $50 million in the year
2001 that would jump to $750 million in the year 2004. On a market share of 20
per cent the company has projected revenues to the tune of $10 million that
could go up to $150 million in the year 2001.