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Online - Thursday, December 10, 2009

Geek Squad Rival PlumChoice Raises $10M In Debt

We find it impressive when a company in this market can raise a significant amount of debt. Plumchoice out of Billerica, MA has raised $10M in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. It had just raised over $14M in equity funding led by Edison Venture Fund. The startup has raised $30M to date, since its founding in 2001.

The startup provides online tech support for most any tech devices from desktops to Blackberrys. PlumChoice now has about 700 employees, after adding about 150 people in the last two months.

PlumChoice takes on GeekSquad by claiming to be quicker. With GeekSquad you need to plan a visit to your home or office - or visit a BestBuy. With PlumChoice, work is done by remote connection over the Internet. That puts it in more direct competition with businesses like iYogi and Crossloop.

For pricing, PlumChoice offers a variety of tech support options by the project, by the minute, and on an annual subscription basis. Services range from one-time PC tune-ups and spyware/virus removal to support for computer peripherals, digital cameras, smartphones, and wireless gear.

We have not used these guys but they get good reviews and the CEO looks so damn tired we figure he must be working hard.

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