Garnett & Helfrich Capital expands VBOs operations to India

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Garnett & Helfrich Capital, a private equity firm specializing in venture buyouts (VBOs), today announced that it will expand its operations to India. Garnett & Helfrich will locate their new office in the financial center of Mumbai with the goal of supporting its portfolio companies in the region and identifying new acquisition targets for its venture buyout fund. Garnett & Helfrich also announced today its investment in Celunite, a leading provider of open mobile platform software and services with development teams located across India.   

 

"India is a hub of technology innovation and talent, thus it is critical that we continue to expand our portfolio companies' presence in the region by helping them build new partnerships, recruit local talent, and identify and evaluate acquisition targets," said Terry Garnett, Managing Director, Garnett & Helfrich Capital. "We will also leverage our Mumbai-based operations to identify new investments in leading technology sectors such as open source mobile platforms like Celunite."  

 

Garnett & Helfrich has acquired a controlling stake in Celunite, a privately-held company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California and development centers in Pune and Hyderabad, India. In line with its venture buyout model, Garnett & Helfrich will work closely with Celunite and its CEO, Mahesh Veerina, to enhance the company's management, product and market strategies. The Celunite transaction is Garnett & Helfrich's fourth and most recent venture buyout investment. 

 

"Our partnership with Garnett & Helfrich Capital provides us with both financial backing and access to a team of operations experts who can help Celunite capitalize on the tremendous market opportunity for a disruptive open source mobile platform," said Mahesh Veerina, CEO of Celunite. "Our partnership with Garnett & Helfrich provides Celunite with a strong foundation upon which to attain our desired growth trajectory for the company."

 

"As the wireless industry has matured, wireless carriers, mobile handset manufactures and others in the wireless industry will benefit from Celunite's open platform strategy," said Garnett. "We found Celunite's business model compelling as it demonstrates that this is yet another arena where open source software is considered a viable alternative to the more costly and limited proprietary alternatives." 

 

Since Garnett & Helfrich was formed in 2004, the firm has worked closely with its portfolio companies, including Wyse Technology, Ingres Corporation and Blade Network Technologies, to help cultivate relationships with key partners, recruit local talent, expand research and development and identify acquisition targets in India. The following highlights some of Garnett & Helfrich's experience in India to date:

 

·       In June 2006, Mark Barrenechea joined Garnett & Helfrich as a Director after having built and managed the Indian operations for Computer Associates and Oracle Corp.

·       Wyse Technology, Garnett & Helfrich's first investment, has assembled a global research and engineering team housed in a 24,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility in Bangalore that is being led by newly appointed Vice President, Raj Sharma. The company has a partnership with Ingram Micro India to help expand its reseller channel in the region which has already won the business of local companies including Kingfisher Airlines and Kanbay International.

·       To capitalize on growing demand worldwide and in India for open source software, Ingres Corp., another Garnett & Helfrich portfolio company, is opening business operations in India and has appointed Vivek Bhatnagar as Country Director, Business Development and Global Alliances.  Mr. Bhatnagar will be responsible for Ingres's operations in India as well as growing Ingres's alliances with Indian global and domestic system integrators, ISVs, and channel partners. Today, Ingres supports customers and partners across all of India's major industries including energy/utilities, financial services, government, manufacturing and transportation/logistics.

 

Sourced From: Text 100 Public Relations Consultancy