Kirusa Expands Series C Financing With Investments From Premier Telecom Companies
Qualcomm Leads Expansion of Series C Round, Validating Kirusa's Technology Leadership and Market Strategy
Nov. 5, 2007 05:44 PM
NEW PROVIDENCE, NJ -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/05/07 -- Kirusa, the leading mobile value added
services provider, today announced the expansion of its Series C financing,
bringing the total round to US $13.3 million. The expansion, led by
Qualcomm Ventures with participation by Eastven Partners, the successor
fund to Ericsson Venture Partners, and Erasmic Venture Fund will further
fuel Kirusa's global expansion to help meet strong worldwide demand for its
products, and to increase its R&D activities. Original Series C investors
include Helion Venture Capital and Nexus India Capital.
Kirusa is the inventor of, and the world leader in, the hugely successful
Voice SMS application. Voice SMS enables people to send SMS messages by
speaking. A user presses the 'star' key, followed by the recipient's
number, and speaks a short message of up to 30 seconds. The recipient gets
an SMS message from the sender, and can "click" (or dial) a number in the
message to directly access the spoken message. After listening to the
message, the recipient can reply by voice, or by text, or can forward the
message. Voice SMS is the fastest growing value added service in Asia, and
is exploding globally with major deployments under way in other parts of
the world. Kirusa holds a patent from the United States Patent and
Trademark Office for its Voice SMS technology. Kirusa's customers include
Tata Telecom, Idea Cellular, MTNL, and BPL Mobile, in India; GrameenPhone
and Warid Telecom in Bangladesh; Ufone, Warid Telecom, and China Mobile in
Pakistan, and Globacom in Nigeria, amongst others. Millions of subscribers
are using Voice SMS to communicate with their colleagues and loved ones.
Nagraj Kashyap, director, Qualcomm Ventures, says, "Voice SMS has a very
strong value proposition that we believe will drive revenue growth for
mobile carriers around the globe. Kirusa has established itself as a
pioneering innovator in this space. Their experienced management team,
combined with the company's strong intellectual property position, will
help Kirusa to build on its already impressive achievements. Qualcomm is
pleased to take part in this funding round."
"We are delighted that Qualcomm has made a strategic investment in Kirusa,"
said Pankaj Sethi, President, Value Added Services, Tata Teleservices Ltd.
He further said, "We are witnessing the continued growth of value added
services in our businesses, in both data and voice-led applications. In
a multilingual nation like India, where texting can be a challenge, Voice
SMS and related applications will open a whole new growth opportunity for
mass consumers. Leading industry players such as Kirusa will play a
significant role in this development."
Mark McAndrews from Eastven says, "Kirusa is poised for rapid and continued
growth and is set to capitalize on sizeable market opportunities. Our
relationships with key industry players, such as Ericsson, not only give us
unique visibility and perspective on the market, but will also help Kirusa
grow into global markets."
Commenting on the new investors, Dr. Inderpal Singh Mumick, Chairman and
CEO of Kirusa, said, "We hope to harness Qualcomm, Eastven's relationships
with equipment providers and Erasmic, to accelerate our progress towards
the goal of becoming a key partner of mobile carriers worldwide."
About Qualcomm Ventures
Qualcomm Ventures was launched in the United States in November 2000 with
an initial US$500 million allocation. Qualcomm Ventures' aim is to support
Qualcomm's mission of enabling and fostering 3G and wireless Internet
markets through strategic investments in privately owned startup ventures.
These strategic investments include companies focusing on wireless
communication technologies and products serving consumer, enterprise and
vertical markets worldwide.
About Eastven
Eastven is a technology venture capital firm and is the successor fund to
Ericsson Venture Partners. Eastven is focused on the communications
technology market and invests in network infrastructure, software,
semiconductor, and enabling technology companies. Eastven is particularly
interested in next-generation IP-based infrastructure, and systems and
applications in the service network layer. For more information, please
visit www.eastven.com.
About Erasmic Venture Fund
Erasmic Venture Fund (EVF, www.erasmic.com) is an early-stage venture
capital fund. EVF has the mandate to invest into early-stage cross-border
(US/India corridor) startups, and brings to bear significant operational
experience of its Partners to help portfolio companies. EVF has made
investments in companies that are in fairly diverse areas, such as Internet
& Mobile, Knowledge Process Outsourcing, and Technology Products.
About Kirusa
Kirusa is a leading developer of value added mobile services that provide
the freedom of multimodality. Kirusa's solutions include the hugely
successful KV.SMS(TM), the world's most advanced "Voice SMS" solution,
which allows mobile users to send and reply to SMS messages with voice, and
works on all handsets and on all networks. The Voice SMS solution offers
the industry's most intuitive user interface, with features such as Direct
Listen(TM) for direct access and reply to messages, Speed Codes(TM) for
quickly sending messages using codes, group messaging, mobile number
portability, convergence, interconnect, and international Voice SMS.
KV.SMS can be deployed in a matter of weeks, and its fast user adoption has
led to explosive revenue growth for Kirusa's customers. KV.SMS is built on
Kirusa's patented and patent pending technology and its highly reliable and
scalable multimodal platform. The platform's ability to manage and
synchronize data and voice interactions, plus its integration with IMS and
3G standards, enables customers to cost effectively deploy additional
revenue-generating services such as messaging, search, information, and
entertainment applications. Kirusa's solutions are deployed worldwide and
used by tens of millions of mobile subscribers. Headquartered in New
Jersey and led by an experienced team of wireless telecom executives and
technologists, Kirusa has sales offices in Paris, France; Delhi, India; and
Abu Dhabi, UAE; with a research and development facility in Bangalore,
India. 'Kirusa Voice SMS,' 'Direct Listen,' and 'Speed Codes' are
trademarks of Kirusa, Inc. For more information, please visit
www.kirusa.com.
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