Sasken attracts Nokia fund

BANGALORE: Sasken Communication Technologies has received $three million in funding from Nokia Growth Partners, a mid- to late- stage VC fund. This latest round of funding comes even as Nortel Networks recently announced that it would invest $10 million in the company.

Briefing reporters, chairman and CEO of Sasken Rajiv Mody said, "We are the first portfolio company that Nokia Growth Partners, which was formed a few months ago, has invested in." "We would be raising an Rs 100 crore IPO later this year and utilizing the funds to fuel the company's growth through opportunities like mergers and acquisitions and also capex and into working capital," he added.

Mody said that Sasken, which focuses on telecom software products R&D, is also witnessing a surge in its services business. Sasken is one of the two independent global protocol stack providers, which owns IP on GSM/GPRS, EGPRS, UMTS and TD-SCDMA protocols. Mody said that the company's goal was to be the number one in the telecom R&D outsourcing space. The market opportunity for network OEMs is around $220 billion worldwide.

Mody also informed that the company plans to expand its R&D presence in India and is in the process of short listing a few locations.

Sasken generated revenue to the tune of $36.4 million in 2003-04 and has employee base of 2,300 people, of which 1,700 are working on wireless projects.