Elitecore may sell 20% pie to US firm

To spread wings in the US and Latin America

Ahmedabad-based Elitecore Technologies Ltd, one of the leading convergent billing, provisioning and customer acquisition software solutions provider, is all set to dilute around 20 per cent of its stake to a US company.

The company is eyeing an US-based software company to pick up around 20 per cent stake in it to facilitate entry into the US and Latin American markets.

"We are primarily focusing on diluting our stake to fuel our entry in the US and Latin American markets. We are expecting to raise over $5 million in the next three years. We may also raise funds through tapping the US capital markets," Heal Patella, chief executive officer, Elitecore Technologies told Business Standard on Friday.

A US team is already in Ahmedabad to help promote Elitecore products in the US and Latin American markets, which mainly comprises of Elitecore's core products namely JISP Billing and Cyberloam.

According to a survey conducted by International Data Corporation, North American data and Voice over-IP billing market accounts for over $4 billion and the market for content filtering, which forms a part of Internet management solutions is estimated at $263 million in North America.

With the expansion into the US and Latin American markets, the company is eyeing to tap around 10 per cent of the $263 million market by 2007, thus generating a revenue of $26 million.

The company has reported a turnover of $1.2 million in the last financial year and expects to exceed a turnover of $2 million by the end of the current financial year.

"In the American market, there is need for an economical solution that helps provide usage-based billing. JISP's usage-based billing system is known to benefit service providers tremendously with increase in revenues and the ability to launch new packages instantly based on market conditions. This also ensures better service and higher levels of customer satisfaction, resulting in greater loyalty," said Benjamin Casado, one of the members of the US team and co-owner of New Jersey-based Eclipse Micro Computer Incorporation.

JIPS has the added advantage of a state-of-the-art development centre in India, due to which JIPS billing is around 40 per cent economical compared with the international players.

At present, JISP handles 1.5 million subscriber in India, with over 90 per cent share in the post-paid dial-up market. JISP's clientele includes some of the leading names in the Indian industry, such as BSNL, MTNL, Reliance, Tata and Bharti among others.

While Cyberloam's patent pending technology is a complete solution provides content filtering, bandwidth management and security solution to corporates, government organisations and educational institutes.

"In the US, providing content filtering is compulsory in libraries and schools by law. The corporate scenario too is highly evolved with content filtering forming a crucial basis to prevent serious issues of legal liability arising out of sexual harassment, downloading pornography, surfing on hate sites and more at work," said Patel.