IT services and consulting company Tech Mahindra Ltd has bought 17.5% stake in US-headquartered telecom software development firm Altiostar Networks Inc. for $15 million (nearly Rs 95 crore).
In a stock exchange filing, Tech Mahindra said it would make the cash investment through its wholly-owned subsidiary Tech Mahindra (Americas) Inc.
The IT firm called it a portfolo investment in the nascent but promising virtualised Radio Access Network space.
A radio access network is a technology that connects individual devices to other parts of a network through radio connections. It is used in 3G and 4G network connections for mobile phones.
Founded in 2011, Altiostar Networks operates out of Tewksbury in Massachusetts. It is the first provider of virtualised Radio Access Network (vRAN) solution for LTE technology. LTE is a 4G mobile communications standard.
The company has 220 employees spread across UK, Germany, India, Mexico, Argentina and Israel.
Tech Mahindra is part of the diversified Mahindra Group. The company’s consolidated income stood at Rs 29,918.4 crore for the financial year 2016-17, with a net profit of Rs 2,850.8 crore.
Last month, Tech Mahindra had agreed to buy additional stake in Comviva Technologies Ltd - a mobile financial and value-added services (VAS) solution provider - from the Bharti Group and private equity firm WestBridge Capital. After this acquisition, the company’s holding in Comviva Technologies increased to 99.17%.
In March last year, the company had executed a definite agreement to acquire US-based healthcare software provider CJS Solutions Group LLC for an enterprise value of $110 million (Rs 734 crore). CJS Solutions operates as the HCI Group, which specialises in providing information technology services to healthcare providers and implements the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software.