mCarbon announced the closing of a round of Venture Capital funding from Canaan Partners. The company is redefining the VAS space in India by innovating products that will create a pull for VAS in the minds of the end users, pioneering a shift from the push to the pull strategy for operators. Canaan’s investment in mCarbon will accelerate the company’s growth and innovative product offerings. Carbon has partnered with some of the leading global telecom operators to offer a variety of new products. Services based on these products will lead to a greater control for VAS delivery in the hands of the end user.

According to IAMAI and IMRB, the Indian VAS market is expected to grow over $3 billion by 2010. While only 10 – 14 percent of the operator revenue comes from VAS, it is expected to cross 30 percent in the next 5 years (TRAI). A major contributor to this will be the value that customers find in the value-added services offered by operators.

Rajesh Razdan, Director and Co-Founder, mCarbon said, “It is our intention to offer product roadmap and service deployment model that will add value to the user experience, creating the much awaited pull (user need) for VAS services in India. We are delighted to partner with Canaan Partners as they bring a good understanding of the Mobile industry and their global presence and experience will help us take our product and services beyond our borders. Additionally, the Canaan team has strong operational experience; product experience and business contacts in the Mobile VAS arena that will help us open new doors and enhance future prospects.”

Commenting on the investment, Harish Gandhi, Executive Director - India, Canaan Partners said, "mCarbon has demonstrated the ability to innovate and provide solutions to enhance operators’ VAS service delivery. mCarbon’s solutions allow consumers to decide how he or she would like to interact with operator services, thereby creating increased levels of consumer satisfaction…a win-win for both operators and end users.”

Harish Gandhi, Executive Director and Maha Ibrahim, General Partner, will join the board of directors at mCarbon.

mCarbon has created a powerful network platform called the Greenroom which enables development of multiple services for operators. Services like Call filtering and scheduling one touch subscription management, as well SpeedSMS built on Greenroom make product experience great for the end user.

Source: Genesis Burson Marsteller

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