Xora merges with Gearworks to create global leader

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Bangalore: Sanjay Shirole founded Xora, merged with Gearworks to become far-and-away the top competitor in the market. Both companies specialize in location - based mobile business applications, which basically mean, using mobile phones to track employees and equipment. The combined company will retain the Xora name and is likely to service more than 16,000 customers across the world's leading wireless carriers. Todd Krautkremer, President and CEO, Gearworks said, "We took this step, after we discovered that the fund raising environment was less-than-hospitable in current situation." The combined company will have the broadest wireless carrier distribution footprint in the industry, including partnerships with Sprint Nextel, Verizon, AT&T, Telstra, U.S. Cellular, Cbeyond, and Procall. In addition to wireless carrier partnerships, Xora is a provider of location-based mobile time clock and data collection solutions for companies that offer TLM (Time and Labor Management) and payroll services. The combined product portfolio will consist of Xora's GPS TimeTrack suite of products and Gearworks' field force manager, etrace, OnCare and appmosphere offerings. The transaction puts Xora in an ideal position to continue to capitalize on the growing market for handset-based mobile resource management applications globally and especially in North America, where the market is expected to reach five million subscribers and more than $1 billion in annual recurring software revenue by 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan, an industry analyst firm that tracks mobile and wireless communications. Sanjay Shirole, Co-founder and CEO, Xora said, "By measures critical to our long-term success, including growth and diversification of revenues, product portfolio, channel partnerships and customer support capabilities, this merger is a big win not only for us, but also for the customers and partners of the new combined company." As part of this transaction, venture investors from both companies, including Dawntreader Ventures, BlueStream Ventures, Split Rock Partners and Rho Ventures have made additional equity investments totaling $8.5 million dollars. In addition, Patrick Wack, former CEO and currently Chairman of Intralinks, a pioneer in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space will join the Xora Board of Directors.