Morgan Stanley and iBus Network (“iBus”) today announced that Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure has invested ₹150 Crores (US$ 21 Million) to acquire a stake in iBus.
iBus offers in-building wireless solutions (“IBS”), outdoor small cells, and other last-mile connectivity solutions to mobile operators to enable them to serve their customers seamlessly.
The company currently deploys its infrastructure across 233 commercial, residential and retail sites across the country with a tenanted area of 276 million sq ft.
“The funds raised will be used for business expansion plans, support working capital requirements to scale the indoor wireless coverage to 400 million sq ft in the next few years to cover 7 million people,” the statement said.
“With a track record of 100% profitable growth YoY over the last 4 years with area additions to its portfolio which covers over 500 million sq ft over 750+ premium projects, iBus is now keen to blend & offer even more convenience to do digital business continuity by working towards integrating New Technology such as 5G, ORAN, FTTH, IoT, BMS within the In-Building Space,” the company added.
Speaking on the investment, Ram Sellaratnam, Sunil Menon & Subash Vasudevan, Co-Founders of iBus, said, “We at iBus welcome Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure as an equity partner for the strength of experience in helping companies build scale. Connectivity is fundamental to large developing digital economies like India and our mission is to build an end-to-end intelligent, scalable and convergent connectivity ecosystem. Distributed Antenna Systems such as In-Building solutions have been fragmented and siloed for a long time. With this investment, iBus will build scale and eliminate inefficiencies to fast track the essential digitalization of our economy.”
Commenting on the investment, Raja Parthasarathy, Managing Director and Co-Head of Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure said, “We are excited to partner with a management team that is establishing itself as the in-building solutions partner of choice for telecom operators. Our investment will allow iBus to drive consolidation and scale in a fragmented industry while enhancing the mobile user experience.”
Cipher-Plexus Capital Advisor was the exclusive advisor for the transaction.