Tikona Digital has today announced that it has secured a massive $171 million investment from Overseas Private Investment Corporation, an independent U.S. govt investment agency. This development has been confirmed by Prakash Bajpai, founder for Tikona.
The funding which is a kind of commercial loan will be channelized towards comeback of the said wireless broadband services by providing the requisite liquidity. A senior investment banker commented on the capital gain as,
This could be the company’s second coming with renewed interest in the telecom sector and its ancillaries.
Tikona Digital Networks (TDN) was founded back in 2008 by Prakash Bajpai and a few other veterans from the telecom industry. This venture was initiated with an aim to provide Tikona’s home Wi-Fi service on free airwaves. The venture didn’t quite work out as planned and hence it forced the company on a downward path.
But later in 2012, after consolidating its service in 12 out of 38 cities, Tikona will now focus on its latest developed 4G technology for home broadband. With the current technology in hand, the company would be able to offer 1GB of data for a mere Rs 5. The pilot project for the same is presently wired up in Varanasi.
Currently, Tikona delivers 4G airwaves in five major regions including Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP East, UP West and Himachal — for which the company paid about Rs.1,508 crore in 2010 securing 20 MHz of broadband spectrum. Commenting upon the edged cost plans of Tikona, a senior telecom analyst said,
Mobile telecom operators produce a GB of data at about Rs 60-70.
Post recently gained investments, the company plans to roll out its services in over 60 cities in the country similar to Varanasi in the coming two years. For now, Tikona claims that it has covered almost 50 percent of Varanasi’s market and further wants to corner the multi-device, heavy users consuming massive amounts of data.
TDN presently is backed by International Finance Corporation, Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners, Everstone Capital Advisors and L&T Infrastructure Finance Co Ltd, who poured about $45 million in November 2014 . For now, Tikona operates in nearly 23 cities and is in competition with operators such as BSNL, Tata Teleservices, Hathway etc. Previously, it acquired HCL Infinet in 2011 and now manages its broadband services.
