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Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure has invested $21 million to acquire a stake in iBus.
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iBus offers In-Building Wireless (IBS), Outdoor Small Cell and other last mile connectivity solutions to mobile operators to enable them to seamlessly serve their customers.
The company currently deploys its infrastructure at 233 commercial, residential and retail sites across the country with 276 million square feet of leased area.
“At iBus, we welcome Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure as a financial partner for the strength of its experience in helping businesses grow. Connectivity is fundamental to large developing digital economies like India and our mission is to build an intelligent, scalable and convergent end-to-end connectivity ecosystem. Distributed antenna systems such as in-building solutions have long been fragmented and siloed. With this investment, iBus will grow in scale and eliminate inefficiencies to accelerate the essential digitalization of our economy,” iBus co-founders Ram Sellaratnam, Sunil Menon and Subash Vasudevan collectively shared while welcoming the investment.
The company’s business model is intimately tied to India’s data consumption and digital infrastructure history. India’s per capita data consumption is the highest in the world, with an average monthly data consumption of 11 GB per month, up from just 1 GB per month in March 2017. Around 80% of data consumption takes place online. indoors, where telecommunications coverage is the least adequate and the growth in mobile data consumption and the transition to 4G/5G require densification of indoor telecom networks.
“We are delighted to partner with an executive team that is establishing itself as the partner of choice for building solutions for telecom operators. Our investment will enable iBus to drive consolidation and scale in a fragmented industry while improving the mobile user experience,” added Raja Parthasarathy, Managing Director and Co-Head of Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure.
Founded in 2013 by three first-generation entrepreneurs, iBus has previously raised capital from a number of high-profile investors and family offices.
With the Government of India’s focus on improving digital infrastructure across the country, companies such as iBus will play a vital role in building this infrastructure and improving capacity and coverage. of the network. The company also provides other solutions such as O-RAN deployment and data analytics, which will play an increasingly important role as the country moves towards 5G.
Cipher-Plexus Capital Advisor was the exclusive advisor on the transaction.
