Bharti Telesoft, a leading supplier of
Value Added Services (VAS) platforms to wireline and wireless
carriers and one of India's fastest growing technology company,
announced a strategic investment from India’s leading venture
capital fund, WestBridge Capital Partners; global venture capital
firm, Sequoia Capital and industry leader, Cisco. WestBridge Capital
Partners, the largest and most active capital fund in India, led
the $13.5 million investment round with a $8 million investment.
Bharti Telesoft is a leading global provider
of value added products and services for the growing mobile telephony
sector across the world. It has consistently delivered high growth
since its inception. Deployed in over 25 countries across 5 continents,
these solutions deliver customer-focused services to over 100
million mobile subscribers worldwide. Telesoft’s list of blue-chip
customers includes France Telecom, Orascom group of Egypt, Celtel
of Amsterdam, GlobeTelecom from the Philippines and MTS in Russia.
Mr. Rakesh Mittal, Vice-Chairman, Bharti
Enterprises, said, “It gives me great pleasure to partner leading
global Venture Capital fund companies with a reputation of many
success stories behind them. Bharti Telesoft has performed well
over the last few years and this partnership will establish a
platform to share knowledge and expertise to help us grow further.”
Mr. Sanjiv Mital, CEO Bharti Telesoft
said, “Bharti Telesoft will use the investment to facilitate acquisitions,
enhance product development and to further expand internationally.
This investment will provide an added impetus to achieve our aim
of being the leading global provider of innovative products, solutions
and services to the telecom sector. We are delighted to have WestBridge
Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital and Cisco as investors in the
company and believe that their expertise and industry networks
will help us strengthen our growth and leadership globally”.
As part of the investment, Mr. SK Jain,
Managing Director, WestBridge Capital Partners, will join the
Bharti Telesoft board. Speaking on the investment, Mr. SK Jain
said, “We believe that value added services are poised for rapid
growth globally. We have been very impressed with the Bharti Telesoft
management team and the strategic guidance provided by Bharti
Enterprises. We are very excited to be a partner in Bharti Telesoft’s
continued rapid growth and helping them dominate the VAS space
in India and globally.”
Speaking about Sequoia Capital’s strategic
investment in the company, Douglas Leone, Partner, Sequoia Capital,
said, “This is the first time we are investing in an Indian company.
We have been very impressed with Bharti Telesoft and their innovative
products, as well as how they have grown their business in various
countries. We feel we can help them in their aim of becoming a
major global player in the space of mobile VAS, worldwide. ”
WestBridge Capital Partners focuses on
high growth companies that target both domestic and export markets
across a variety of sectors including outsourced services, information
technology, healthcare, wireless and the Internet. WestBridge
Capital Partners currently manages a portfolio of 19 companies
across different sectors. Many of these companies perceived as
leaders in their sectors.