Early stage India-focused venture capital fund Ncubate Capital Partners has picked up a significant minority stake in Pune-based Nevis Networks Pvt Ltd, a network security provider.
Although the financials of the deal were not available, Nevis will utilise the funds for product development and operations expansion across the globe.
“Ncubate is looking at companies with strong management teams at early stages of growth and Nevis has the opportunity to build a global company providing state-of-the-art security solutions,” said Rakesh Malhotra, founder and managing partner, Ncubate.
This is the first transaction of Ncubate, which has over $ 40 million under management. The fund, founded by Rakesh Malhotra, also the founder and chairman of Luminous Power Technologies, focuses on branded consumer products and services, mobile VAS and digital media and logistics and supply chain sectors, among others.
“The funding will help Nevis in product development, expanding its presence in existing markets and in entering newer markets. Nevis already has a well established presence in the network security market in India with its NAC product,” Radha Shelat, CEO of Nevis, said in a statement.
Nevis Networks was founded in 2002 by late Ajit Shelat and is headquartered in Pune, where its research and development centre is located. The company designs, develops and markets security switching and appliance solutions and has customers in many countries including India, USA, Canada, UK and China in education, BFSI, IT/ITES, defence, govt-PSU and energy verticals.
Prior to the latest funding, Nevis had raised over $32 million in three rounds of funding from venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, BlueRun Ventures (formerly Nokia Venture Partners) and New Path Ventures LLC. It raised $10 million in a Series A round in April 2003 from New Path Ventures, which was followed by a $10 million second round of funding led by BlueRun Ventures in May 2004. In July, 2005, it raised $12.5 million in a follow-on round of Series B financing from new investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and existing investors BlueRun Ventures and New Path Ventures, taking the total amount raised to $32.5 million.
(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)
