VCs Preferred Wireless Startups Last Year; 2006 Too Looks Good
It’s a great time to be a startup in wireless space globally, according to a recent study. India, of course, is a wireless market with some 80.6 million cellphone users, and so India too is going to benefit from it.
“Wireless is where the action is and this is a great time to be a wireless start-up in search of venture funding,” says Lynne Gregg, an analyst with visiongain which has done a study entitled Venture capital in wireless and telecoms: Funding technology innovation. “The focus of private equity investors is squarely on the rapidly growing, global wireless market. Longer term, we expect the movement towards financing wireless start-ups outside the US to grow, as major funds are earmarking funds for start-ups in Asian countries, such as China and India.”
Last year, wireless was a significant growth sector for venture capital investment. During 2005, 152 wireless-related companies received $1.3 billion in funding, a 24 per cent increase over 2004’s $1.1 billion. Wireless accounted for 7 per cent of total VC investment last year, a figure that will rise in 2006 and beyond. The bulk of telecom investment today - around 60 per cent - is in wireless and related technology, including networking, infrastructure, semiconductors, mobile computing, content and services. (Via TMCNet)
