The Carlyle Group Invests US$10.3 Million of Growth Capital into Elitecore Technologies Ltd

Mumbai, India – Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group has made a US$10.3 million investment in Elitecore Technologies Ltd. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, Elitecore is an IT company focusing on the fast growing Internet security and the convergent billing solutions markets. Funds will be used for Elitecore’s ongoing product development, research & development, working capital, new products and infrastructure build-up. The investment will come from Carlyle Asia Growth Capital Partners, a US$680 million fund that invests in high growth companies in China, India, Japan and Korea.

Elitecore caters to the Internet security market through a range of Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliances sold under the brand name of Cyberoam. Under this, Elitecore provides comprehensive Internet security and delivers enterprise class firewall, VPN, gateway anti-virus, gateway anti-spam, intrusion detection and prevention, content filtering and bandwidth management solutions over a single, integrated platform.

In the communications and entertainment segment, Elitecore offers a convergent billing solution, which is sold by the name Crestel. Crestel is an integrated, modular and multi-tier convergent billing solution that provides billing, customer care, mediation and provisioning solutions to enable next generation data, voice and video services over wireline and wireless networks. The company supports customers through its sales offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and the United States.

Mr. Shankar Narayanan, Managing Director and Head of Carlyle’s Growth Capital team in India, said, "Elitecore is a perfect example of a company that has successfully leveraged the low cost, highly skilled Indian talent to develop a superior quality product that allows them to compete with players from the developed world. We are delighted to make a significant investment in Elitecore, which is poised for exponential growth. With a focused management team, Carlyle is committed to facilitating Elitecore’s transition into a highly successful UTM and Telecom Billing solutions company in the next few years."

Mr. Hemal Patel, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Elitecore, said, "We are proud of our ability to create strong research-based products and operational innovation. It gives me immense pleasure to join hands with Carlyle. We will leverage Carlyle’s global network, experience and large portfolio of companies to develop Elitecore into a strong global organization."

Mr. Wayne Tsou, Managing Director and Head of Carlyle’s Asia Growth Capital group, said, "Elitecore has built a strong position in its home market, leveraging its unique product characteristics and local knowledge. Under the effective leadership of Mr. Patel, Elitecore will establish a meaningful presence in various global markets."

About Elitecore Technologies
Elitecore Technologies Limited is provider of Unified Threat Management Solutions and convergent billing, provisioning and customer acquisition solutions. Elitecore’s divisions include Cyberoam, an innovator of identity-based UTM solutions that offers integrated Internet security with fine granularity through unique user identity-based policies, and Crestel meeting the voice, data, video billing and customer care requirements of tier-one service providers.

Elitecore was established in 1999, and possesses a strong R&D base and support center based in India, allowing the Company to sustain a healthy growth rate of more than 75 percent since inception. For more information, please visit www.elitecore.com.