Kirusa Gets $10 Million Funding From Helion, Nexus

Kirusa Gets $10 Million Funding From Helion, Nexus
EFY News Network
(Tuesday, July 17, 2007 6:12:08 PM)

As a part of the investment, the managing directors from Helion and Nexus join Kirusa's board.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007: Kirusa, a mobile value added services provider, has closed $10 million Series C financing. The funding, led by Helion Venture Partners and Nexus India Capital, will enable Kirusa to strengthen their 'India Out Strategy' and take the benefits of Voice SMS to carriers around the world.
As a result of the investment, Ashish Gupta, managing director, Helion, and Naren Gupta, managing director, Nexus, have joined Kirusa’s board. They join Louis Golm, Inderpal Singh Mumick, Shirish Nadkarni and Aymerik Renard on the board.

Commenting on Kirusa’s India Out strategy, Dr Inderpal Singh Mumick, chairman and CEO, Kirusa, said, “The fast growing Indian telecommunications market provides a dynamic impetus for taking products to the global markets after proving them here. The financing will give Kirusa resources to grow its sales, operations and R&D activities, and to bring the benefits of Voice SMS to an increasing number of subscribers around the world.”

Ashish Gupta, managing director, Helion, said, “Kirusa has an unmatched technology to offer one of the most revolutionary mobile value added services of our times. This unique capability will help them deliver their solutions to more customers leading to higher subscriber growth, call traffics and revenue generation for mobile operators. Kirusa with its industry-leading position in Voice SMS solutions becomes an ideal investment opportunity for Helion.”

Voice SMS enables people to send SMS messages by speaking. A user dials * followed by the number of the recipient’s number and speaks a short message of up to 30 seconds. The recipient gets an SMS message from the sender and can 'click' (or dial) a number in the message to directly access the spoken message. After listening to the message, the recipient can reply by voice, or by text, or can forward the message. Kirusa's Voice SMS solution, KV.SMSTM, works on all handsets.