Ybrant Digital, which had acquired Lycos for $36 Million last August, has raised $48 million in fresh financing, in debt and equity from Oak India Investments, and existing investors Asia Pacific Capital, ICICI Bank; Ybrant is essentially a media sales company, having acquired ad firms across the globe, and with offices in 20 countries. VCCircle had reported the fund raising earlier today, but contrary to what has been reported, Reddy told MediaNama that an IPO this year isn't certain, but is one of the options that they're considering for further fundraising this year. Strange that it has an Investor Relations page on its corporate site, then, albeit with very little info. - Acquisition Plans: YBrant will use around 50% (give or take a little) of the funds raised to fund acquisitions in the digital space, and the rest for organic growth. "We have a few deals in the pipeline that we're working on. We're looking at affiliate marketing, gaming and mobile, comparison shopping companies and co-registration." Over the past few years, apart from Lycos, Ybrant has acquired Australian ad network company Max Interactive, Israeli ad firm Oridian($13.5 million), US-based DW Net Ventures LLC / MediosOne ($4 million), Serbia-based Seenetix for its flagship bulk emailing product VoloMP ($2.2 million) and US- based Pennyweb Inc ($10 million) and Argentina based ad network DreamAd. Also read: Why Ybrant Bought Lycos; Plans - Mobile: YBrant has launched YBrant Mobile, a mobile advertising network, as a separate divison. Reddy said that they need to enhance their offering, and invest more to develop…
