Nasdaq-listed Nuance Communications acquires VAS firm mCarbon for $36 mn

US-based software company Nuance Communications Inc has acquired Noida-headquartered value-added services provider (VAS) mCarbon Tech Innovations Pvt. Ltd for $36 million in a cash-and-stock deal, a media report said.

The deal will help Nuance expand its VAS and subscriber revenue services, The Economic Times reported, citing Richard Mack, vice president of corporate marketing and communications at Nuance.

Mack didn't disclose the terms of the agreement, and the report didn't say where it got the deal value from.

Queries sent to mCarbon and Nuance Communications did not elicit a response at the time of writing this report.

Nasdaq-listed Nuance Communications offers local language speech and imaging applications for enterprises and consumers worldwide.

mCarbon was founded in early 2008 by Brijmohan Mahendru and Rajesh Razdan, both former employees of Bharti Telesoft.

In February 2009, the company raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from Canaan Partners.

mCarbon helps telecom companies maximise revenues in usage and retention, customer life cycle and value management. Its over-the-top (OTT) call management app for telecom service providers offers call filtering, setting profiles, visual voicemail, SMS screening, push notifications and other phonebook utilities to their subscribers.

In 2013, mCarbon introduced a USSD gateway (unstructured supplementary services data, a protocol used to communicate with the service provider's computers) on the cloud to ensure fast and easy rollout of interactive services for telecom operators.

The company counts Airtel, BSNL, MTS, Vodafone, Aircel, Uninor, Idea, and others among its clients.

Other VAS players include Bengaluru-based OnMobile Global Ltd which launched its consumer brand ONMO in October last year. The new brand will help OnMobile enhance its presence in the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment. The firm traditionally works with telecom operators on VAS such as ringtones, music products and mobile radio.

In 2015, Mumbai-based film studio and digital entertainment firm Eros International Media Pvt Ltd was reported to have acquired Chennai-based mobile VAS provider Universal Power Systems Pvt Ltd (UPSPL), which operates under the banner of TechZone, through an all stock deal.

In December 2014, One97 Communications Ltd, which runs Paytm, partnered with Nigeria-based mobile telecommunications company Glo Mobile to provide VAS services to the latter's' customers in Benin, West Africa.