Bangalore-based (UMA), a mobile, broadband and wireless technology firm focusing on connection management (UConnect), device management (UManage) and data synchronisation (USync) software, has raised series A funding of $1 million, led by Mumbai Angels, Blume Ventures, India Venture Partners (Mauritius) and Christopher Preinz and Associates (EU) also took part in the round.
The funding will be used to deploy 4G/LTE (Long Term Evolution Technology) and also to scale up its 15-member team to a total of 25 in the next few months. Additionally, the company will open sales & marketing offices across the globe. United Mobile has recently opened an office in Japan and intends to foray into the USA and Europe (the UK and Austria to start with). It also plans to bring one or two semiconductor partners and 6 ODM partners on board, and bundle UConnect with some of the key device manufacturers and also with laptops, Ultrabooks and Tablets.
United Mobile was set up by Sriram V Iyer and Arun Samudrala in 2009. An alumnus of the National Institute of Technology (Tiruchirappalli), Iyer has previously worked with Philips Semiconductors and Beceem Communications. A passout from the University of California, Davis – Graduate School of Management, Samudrala has worked with Wipro Technologies, Ittiam Systems and Beceem.
Talking to Techcircle.in, Iyer said, “The current funding is expected to last for the next 18 months and we expect the 4G technology to be widely deployed by next year.â€
Talking about the fundraising, Anil Joshi, vice-president of Mumbai Angels, said, “Mumbai Angels has the vision of supporting startups that foster innovation and push boundaries of the domain they work on. We are very glad to support UMA. Some of the technologies it is working upon will power the next generation of mobile and wireless devices and we are confident that it will emerge as a major global player in the 4G/LTE domain.â€
This is Mumbai Angel’s fifth investment since January this year. Earlier this year, it has invested in Bangalore-based Cloud telephony startup Exotel Techcom Pvt Ltd and put in fresh capital into HMS Infotech Pvt Ltd, a technology startup offering Cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions for small and mid-sized hospitality industry. Other two investments in 2012 include education technology startup Carveniche (check here and two-year-old disruptive technology product startup eDreams Edusoft which focuses on the education space (more on that here).