New Delhi-based mobile value added services (VAS) company One97 Communications has teamed up with private equity firm SAIF Partners to launch the One97 Mobility Fund, which will invest in seed and early-to-growth stage mobile VAS companies. The fund will have a $100 million corpus, contributed by the two partners. It will invest anywhere between $50,000 and $5 million per startup.
One97 has earlier incubated two mobile VAS startups — Oorja Mobile Services and TenCube on its own. SAIF Partners, incidentally, is also the largest institutional investor in One97. It currently holds 41 per cent and has invested $20 million in the company so far, according to this VC Circle report. The private equity firm, reportedly, increased its stake by an additional 10 per cent just shortly after the company announced plans to go public this year with a Rs 120 crore offer. See the draft red herring prospectus filed with the Indian markets regulator SEBI here. Other investors in the company include Intel Capital and Silicon Valley Bank.
Founded in 2000 by 31-year old Vijay Shekhar Sharma, One97′s clients include Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone. Read more at the company’s blog.
(Source: Press Release)
Track this one Snigdha – unless this is just a pre ipo announcement. Lets see what gets deployed.