One97 invests in LeapSky Wireless

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One97 invests in LeapSky Wireless
Noida: One97 Communications' One97 Mobility Fund, a mobile VAS company, made an undisclosed investment in Singapore-based LeapSky Wireless. One97 Mobility Fund is a corpus of $100 million committed with SAIF Partners. Founded by Siva Sai N, LeapSky has developed JumpSurf, a device which provides cheaper international data roaming to customers through bulk data deals with telecom operators across many countries. JumpSurf converts 3G to Wifi, but has plans to upgrade to support LTE/WiMax networks, for higher data transfer speeds. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Chairman, One97 Communications, said that with current tariffs, the cost of 1 GB data in Singapore can go upto 6 lakh, but JumpSurf will be even cheaper than what the operator charges locally, since the company has bought data in bulk. Siva said that the product will first be introduced to the enterprise segment and later extended to consumer market. The company has currently finalized the Data bundling agreements in Malaysia and Singapore and will extend it to other markets in near future. They are in talks with operators in different markets, including India, for more tie-ups. One97 will help them in marketing and sales, and will facilitate in reaching out to operators that it works with. Siva said that the investment from One97 came at a time when the market of their product is going to be huge. LeapSky is currently incubated at Singapore Management University Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. They have received a grant from Singapore Government's Spring TECS-POV. Sharma said that they are investing in a pre-revenue company. One97 had earlier invested in Ciqual, a Scotland-based mobile broadband customer service solutions firm, earlier this year, along with Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt's Tomorrow Ventures and current Scottish investors, Par Equity. They have filed an IPO for 120 crore. It has made investments in Oct2ps and Oorja Mobile Services. Last year they sold 25 percent stake in Singapore-based Tencube to McAfee.