India-based Reliance Technology Ventures, the venture capital arm of Reliance ADA Group, has struck again.
On the heels of its December stake in U.S.-based E-Band Communications, it said it has snagged an investment in Stoke, a U.S. provider of telecommunications services in the fixed, cellular, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX markets. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Previously it closed an all-cash deal when Reliance Communications agreed to acquire Yipes Holdings, a managed Ethernet and networking company, for $ 300 million.
It is also nearing completion of another deal with a U.S. company, expected to be finalized by early January 2008.
The investment in Stoke includes existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Integral Capital Partners, and DAG Ventures.
“Right from the start, our strategy was to either incubate new business ideas or invest in emerging and promising technologies in IT, IT-enabled services, hardware and semiconductors, media and entertainment, apart from telecom,” Reliance CEO Harshal Shah said.
Telecommunications is hot right now in India. The ADA group, which owns Indian telecommunications company Reliance Communications, is betting heavily on it.
“We have an unlimited corpus of funds and are not restricted by any constraints when it comes to investing in companies where technology is a key differentiator,” Mr. Shah said.
The telecommunications arm of the Reliance ADA group has established a presence in over 4,500 towns and 300,000 villages in India as well as operations in all major countries.
Red Herring’s Sufia Tippu reported from Bangalore.