Online video streaming service, iStream.com is struggling to raise a Series B round of funding in a tough market for fund raising, and the company is exploring various options, its CEO Radhakrishnan Ramachandran told MediaNama, not specifically commenting on whether the company is shutting down. MediaNama had heard from reliable internal sources that the company is laying off its employees with one month advance salary, and may shut down by the end of May. Ramachandran said that, with 6.1 million uniques and 12 million video views in April 2013, iStream has been in the market to raise their Series B funding but the market conditions have been tough, and they're looking at multiple options, including cost cutting. He did not specifically comment on layoffs. In 2011, A2Media, which operates iStream, raised $5 million from SAIF Partners in November 2011 to launch the premium video content portal. iStream currently focuses on Indian content and offers on-demand content across various categories like news, TV shows, movies and sports among others. The company had claimed to have a library of over 200,000 clips from 80 television channels across English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu as of December 2012. Besides on-demand content, it also offers live streaming of 26 Indian news channels across various languages like English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. This includes Times Now, Headlines Today, ET Now, News 9, Aaj Tak and India TV among others. Partnerships: iStream had partnered with Neo Sports to provide exclusive live streaming of 2012 UEFA European Football Championship in June 2012. It had also secured exclusive live…
