Tech Mahindra sells Altiostar stake to Rakuten for $45 mn

Pune: India's fifth-largest IT services provider, Tech Mahindra, has sold its entire stake in US-based Altiostar Networks to Rakuten for $45 million, making the Japanese company a majority shareholder in the virtualised radio access network (RAN) technology firm, according to a BSE filing. In 2018, Tech Mahindra invested $15 million for a 17.5% stake in the vRAN firm as part of the US-based company’s $114 million Series C fund raise.

Tech Mahindra said in the regulatory filing on Wednesday that it had divested its holding of 18,518,518 C1preferred shares in Altiostar Networks through subsidiary Tech Mahindra (Americas) to Rakuten USA. Altiostar provides 4G and 5G virtualized RAN software solutions for open interfaces to build an open and secure multivendor web-scale network. Tech Mahindra will continue to work closely with Altiostar following the stake sale, the Indian IT firm’s managing director and chief executive CP Gurnani said.

Separately, Tech Mahindra and Rakuten Mobile, a Rakuten Group company responsible for mobile communications, said the Indian IT services provider will be a preferred partner for global go-to-market opportunities for the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP). Tech Mahindra will provide its technologies and software capabilities to support the development and deployment of mobile networks for global customers of RCP, it said.