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News >> Technology >>
Indian-founded IT cos MNCs' delight
By siliconindia staff writer
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Thursday, 09 October 2003, 19:30 IST
BANGALORE: Indian-founded hi-tech companies continue to be wooed by MNC tech firms in the US. The second quarter (Q2) of this fiscal saw several Indian-founded companies getting MNC suitors.
Indian-founded companies in this quarter also raised significant sums in an environment where investors are extra choosy on who they park their money with.
A report from TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) involving Indian-founded companies worldwide, said that of the 40 companies which raised funding, over 15 companies closed rounds of $10 million-plus.
Tellium, the Nasdaq-listed provider of optical networking technology, reverse merged with privately-held telecom equipment firm Zhone Technologies in a deal valued at $180 million. Tellium is co-founded by Dr Krishna Bala. Sanera Systems, a provider of storage networking technology founded by Raj Cherabuddi, was acquired by McData, a Nasdaq-listed provider of storage networking technologies, for approximately $102 million in cash. Sanera had raised $35 million in its third round in Q2. McData also picked up Nishan Systems for $83 million in cash. Nishan founded by Aamer Latif is a supplier of storage over IP technology. MediaQ, a provider of graphics and multimedia chip technology for mobile devices founded by Ramesh Singh and Sunder Velamuri was bought by the Nasdaq-listed graphics chipmaker Nvidia for $70 million.
The July-September quarter saw a significant pick up in investment activity compared to the April-June quarter. Arun Natarajan of TSJ Media said that Indian companies raised $408 million in venture capital and private equity financing.
This when compared to the previous quarter when 23 Indian-founded companies had raised $210 million.
Infinera, a provider of optical technology to telecom service providers founded by Jagdeep Singh got the single largest investment during the quarter by raising $53 million in its fourth round. This takes Infineras total funding to over $130 million. Alex Naqvi co-founded Luminous Networks, a provider of multi-service communications transport platforms got $25 million in its fifth round.
The TSJ Media report said that the enterprise software products sector, which witnessed 10 deals, attracted the most number of investments during the quarter.
The $10 million second round raised by Mr Pavni Diwanji co-founded MailFrontier, a provider of anti-spam software, was the largest investment within this sector. This was followed by healthcare and bio-tech sector which got seven investments and wireless technology sector with six investments.
(Source: Economic Times)