Sequoia Capital backed Knowlarity Communications acquires Unicom Techlabs
Knowlarity Communications Pvt. Ltd. is an NCR based cloud telephony startup founded in 2009 by Ambarish Gupta and Pallav Pandey. The company went on to raise an INR 34 crore investment round from Sequoia Capital and has gone to expand globally with a presence in about 65 countries. In a recent development, the company has acquired Unicom Techlabs, another Delhi based startup in the same space.
Unicom Techlabs helps companies manage leads better with the virtual receptionist and was founded by Abhinav Jha and Puneet Kaura. Unicom had about to 200 customers in SMB, e-Commerce, real estate, healthcare, education and media segment which will now be handled by Knowlarity. This acquisition also gives full ownership of the intellectual property to Knowlarity. "This acquisition is a sign of consolidation in the cloud telephony industry and it'll help with our strategic objectives," says Ambarish Gupta. Knowlarity has been one of the talked about startups in the Indian cloud telephony industry and has seen competition from players like Exotel, KooKoo, MCube and others. Ambarish believes that the cloud telephony space will take the route that eCommerce as taken and eventually one or two big players will remain.
Knowlarity has about 6,000 paid users and about a lakh free users with an expected turnover of INR 75 crore by 2015. The company did appear like facing turbulent times when co-founder Pallav Pandey left but it has regained momentum and with this acquisition, aims to go out stronger in the Indian as well as the global market.
Cloud telephony is basically a solution which allows businesses to have a telephone number on a space that is rented out by a services provider. And this phone number becomes especially useful because now it can do a lot of things like play back recorded calls, keep a log of all calls, SMS applications and more. The solution is especially useful for SMBs and the huge number of such businesses in India makes it a lucrative business for services providers. Read more about the Cloud Telephony ecosystem and how it has evolved over the years.
Website: Knowlarity