Acacia Partners and its associate funds have acquired 4.6% in network and application services provider Net4 India Limited for Rs 11 crore($2.3 million). Net4 India, a Noida-based company, is a provider of hosted email, web hosting and domain name registration in the Asia-Pacific region.
It offers internet bandwidth services, data centre solutions, VoIP solutions, and enterprise messaging & hosting solutions.
Net4 India has been on a fund-raising spree over the past year and half. It raised Rs 8 crore from QS India Hosting, an investment arm of international private equity firm Quilvest group that is listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The PE firm that also has an indirect investment in SKS Microfinance through its investment in Kismet Capital, picked 3.4% in Net4 India last August at a price of Rs 116 per share.
“We basically have a capex plan of Rs 70 crore over the next three years. The idea was to have the right mix of equity, internal accruals and debt to fund our investment plans,” Jasjit Sawhney, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Net4 India Limited had told VCCircle few months ago.
It also raised $3.19 million from Madison India Capital Advisors and $1.87 million in second round from Granite Hill India Opportunities Fund. The existing investors stay invested and have not exited in the current round of financing.
The company is planning to set up a 30,000 sq, ft data centre in Chennai. It operates several small format data centres and is looking to set up a big one and also increase the overall capacity. This will cost Rs 50 crore and the firm intends to invest a further Rs 20 crore for adding MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and VPN (Virtual Private Network) to its service portfolio.
For the year ended March 31, 2010 it had consolidated sales of Rs 195 crore, with net profit of Rs 11.5 crore. For Acacia Partners this expands its India portfolio. It already has investments in firms such as fashion apparel retailer Provogue, Vadodara-based hospitality firm Sayaji Hotels and SKF India.
