Karbonn Mobiles in talks with US PE firms for raising Rs230 crore

Karbonn Mobiles, a joint venture between Delhi-based Jaina Group and Bangalore-based United TeleLinks (UTL), is reportedly in preliminary talks to raise Rs230 crore ($50 million) from two US private equity firms.

The Times of India, citing unnamed sources close to the development, said that Karbonn Mobiles has held discussions with Accel Partners and Mount Kellet Capital to raise funds-valuing itself at around Rs2,300 crore ($500 million).

Karbonn, which imports handsets from original design manufacturers in China, Taiwan and South Korea to help cut down on handsets cost, is planning to expand its factory in Bangalore in the future.

Sudhir Hasija, MD of UTL told the paper, ''A lot of private equity firms are approaching us but we are not immediately interested in raising money. Maybe when we expand our mobile phone factory in Bangalore further and get good valuations, we will consider it.''

Karbonn Mobiles, which aims to capture a market share of 7-10 per cent in India in the multimedia phone segment, is setting up a 400,000 units capacity handset manufacturing plant in Bangalore.

The company had invested around Rs22 crore on product development and sales operations, when it started operations in May last year, and has plans to invest a further Rs100 crore in the current fiscal for operations, functions and sales.

Karbonn had good growth over the last year after India banned Chinese mobile handsets in the country due to security reasons as a majority of them did not have IMEI numbers.

According to Hasija, Karbonn is expected to post revenues of around Rs1,800 crore for the current fiscal.