Bangalore: Banc of America Equity Partners-Asia has invested $ 6.5 million in Bangalore-based digital signal processing (DSP) company Ittiam Systems, it was announced today (Dec 8, 2004).

Ittiam, which started operations in January 2001, had raised the Series A round of $ 5 million in March 2001 from Global Technology Ventures, which was co-founded by BAEP-Asia in 1999.

Ittiam's CEO and chairman, Srini Rajam, told a news conference in Bangalore: "We plan to leverage the funds to fuel the next phase of growth for the company which will be crucial for our goal to go public."

For the financial year ending March 2004, Ittiam announced revenues of $ 4.8 million with a net profit of $ 1 million.

Rajam said the company, which currently has more than 50 customers in US, Europe and Asia, is now seeking to scale up operations in terms of talent and product base, customer and revenue base.

Initial public offering of the company, singularly focused on DSP systems in media and communication, is slated for the year 2008, he added.

The company, which was rated as the world's most preferred supplier of DSP IP both in the software and hardware categories by the DSP Professionals Survey 2004, conducted by Forward Concepts, USA, currently has 130-plus DSP experts, and the number would be ramped up to 200 next year, Rajam said.

Managing director and head, BAEP-Asia, Kayu Mehta, said Ittiam is a company with a difference and has tremendous potential to emerge as a global leader in technology innovation and licensing.