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Considering the investor interest in the clean energy space, here is an interesting news item. Indus Elec-trans, a division of the Ahmedabad-based Electrotherm (India), the makers of the battery-powered “Yo Byks”, is entering the three-wheeler segment, reports The Economic Times. It plans to roll out a battery-run autorickshaw by June 2007. The company is also working on a hybrid electric bus. But a commercial launch of this may take two years. By the way, its no-petrol Yo Byks has crossed sales of 15,000 within a year of its launch. They are bought by working women and school students.

As for the three-wheeler, it will run about 100 km for a single battery charge. The maximum speed of the vehicle will 50 to 60 km per hour. That is not bad. Currently the three -wheelers are mostly run on petrol or CNG. More here.

This is considered a good move from Sonata Software. Its UK-based subsidiary has acquired a 50.1 per cent stake in Germany's TUI InfoTec GmbH for $23.74 million (euro 18 million). Sonata has also received anti-trust clearance from the Federal Cartel Office in Germany. The remaining 49.9 per cent stake in TUI InfoTec will be held by TUI AG.

State Bank of India (UK) has provided eiro 10 million in acquisition financing. The rest is expected to be met from the internal accruals.

Bangalore-headquartered Sonata registered revenues of Rs 90.9 crore in the first six months of this financial year. Smaller IT companies like Sonata are increasingly looking at acquisitions to grow.

I just saw this on NDTV Profit. The market buzz is that venture capital fund Sequoia Capital India may invest in Geodesic, a publicy listed technology company. There are no further details. So treat this as market buzz till both the parties confirm the deal. In another note, if the deal goes through this could be the first PIPE deal for Sequoia in India.

The company, started in 1999, is widely known for its universal instant messaging system (www.mundu.com), which combine AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, Mundu and Yahoo across the Internet, wireless devices and platforms. Geodesic has several products for new media like Mundu web content aggregator, ADePT, which is a self service ad management system, and so on.

Geodesic's sales in 2005-06 were Rs 95.91 crore, and net profits were Rs.41.67 crore, according to the company website. It also makes projections for the next year (06-07) - sales at Rs 160 – Rs 170 crores and net profits in the range of Rs 65–70 crore.

In 2005, Geodesic acquired three companies - PicoPeta Simputers, Hong Kong-based Engage Solutions, and a stake in Clangula IT of Sweden. The company had angel funding from Mahesh Murthy's Passion Fund.

Despite the buzz, the Geodesic stock lost 4.46 per cent on National Stock Exchange today to close at Rs 217.40

One way to spot a good investment opportunity will be to follow some smart venture capitalists making eary stage investments. If you are trailing Vinod Khosla, half your due diligence is done. Moser Baer's Deepak Puri (right) seems to have done that. His new solar energy cells subsidiary Moser Baer Photo Voltaic (MBPV) has acquired a minorty stake in Silicon Valley-based Stion Corporation, which develops photovoltaic cell technologies. The terms are not disclosed. The company, earlier called NStructures, had in July raised $3.15 million from Khosla Ventures and Braemar Energy of a planned $6.3 million first round of funding.

This is the third investment in alternative/energy startups by MBPV, which is a new subsidiary formed by the world's fourth largest CD and DVD maker. The company had earlier invested in two startups - Solaria and also in SolFocus.

In Solaria, MBPV alongwith a consortium of investors invested $22 million. In another deal, MBPV invested $7 million in a series A funding in SolFocus, a Palo Alto-based concentration photo voltaic company.

Moser Baer, which is currently in a cyclical, commoditised optical storage devices business, seems to struck a good business opportunity in photovoltaic industry. The global photovoltaic market is fast growing, and the industry sales are expected to grow over six times to $40 billion by 2010, according to a report. The demand is also price elastic. As the costs of PV electricity slide to conventional levels, it could exponentially expand this market, says the report. So watch this company.

Bharti Telesoft, a company that provides value added services and solutions to wireless and wireline carriers, is looking at acquisitions in Europe and the US, reports The Economic Times. Avendus Advisors has got the mandate to do the deal. The company, which received $13.5 million from Sequoia Capital India and Cisco Systems last year, plans to use the entire money for the acquisition.

The deal size could range from $5 million to $15 million and the target company can have an employee strength of 30 to 300 people, the report says quoting CEO Sanjiv Mittal. The company has already shortlisted some 8 to 10 companies.

Bharti Telesoft is a sister concern of the Bharti Airtel group. The chairman is Rakesh Mittal, the elder brother of Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal.

Reliance Communications is getting into shared telecom infrastructure business wireless towers. This will be a separate entity and will lease out the towers and other related telecom infrastructure services to third party telcos. Reliance is currently scouting for strategic partners and private equity funds to invest in TowerCo, as the proposed 100 per cent subsidiary will be called.

According to The Economic Times, Singapore government's investment arm Temasek, besides others, is in talks with Reliance Communications for picking up stake in TowerCo. Reliance may divest about 25-30 per cent.

The company also plans to offload 5-10 per cent stake in TowerCo to US-based American Tower Corporation (ATC). It's the world’s largest telecom tower management company, followed by Crown Castle International.

Reliance currently has 15,000 cell sites and plans to add 10,000 more. India has a total of 70,000 towers and a 30 per cent of it are shared.

Update: Business Standard reports that Reliance Communications is also in talks with private equity fund Blackstone for selling a stake in TowerCo. What may help is that Blackstone CEO Akhil Gupta was earlier the chief operating officer with Reliance Infocom (then under the control of Mukesh Ambani), the earlier avtar of Reliance Communications. Gupta left Reliance after a bitter spat with Mukesh Ambani's right hand man Manoj Modi over some regulatory issues.

Software services company 3i Infotech has announced two acquisitions. One is in the US and the other one is in Delhi. 3i has signed an agreement to acquire 51 percent in US-based Professional Access for $12 million with an option to acquire the remaining 49 percent stake over a period of two years. The acquisition would boost 3i's revenues in the next quarter (Jan-March) to Rs 2.25-2.40 billion from Rs 1.5 billion now. Professional Access has blue chip clients such as Citibank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Duke Energy in the BFSI and retail verticals.

3i Infotech has also announced a 51 percent stake acquisition in a Delhi-based business intelligence company called e-Enable Technologies for Rs 51 million ($1.13 million). The balance 49 per cent would be acquired after March 31, 2008. e-Enable is a company focused in Business Intelligence and data warehousing, where 3i is looking to expand.

More details in Reuters and India Infoline.

Tata Consultancy Services has acquired an Australian company called TCS Management (formerly called Total Communication Solutions), which is a privately-owned boutique consulting company. The deal involves an upfront payment of A$ 1.7 million (USD$1.3 million) plus performance payments for a total consideration of A$15 million ($11.4 million) over five years.

TCSM has over 35 senior consultants with a total turnover of A$5.5 million ($4.21 million) for the financial year ended June 30, 2006. With this acquisition, TCS plans to grow its Australian business and provide high-end business and IT consulting to its Australian clients.

Read - TCS buys Australian consultancy firm for A$15mn

Hexaware Technologies, a leading global IT & BPO services provider, has acquired 100 per cent equity of FocusFrame, a US-based software testing firm, in an all cash deal for $34.3 million. The acquisition will be completed in 6 weeks. Hexaware will pay $25 million in cash on closing the deal, while the rest will be paid out over 24 months contingent on meeting projected revenue and margin targets.

California-based FocusFrame is likely to achieve revenues of $24 million for CY 06, with about 14 per cent Profit Before Tax margin. The company specializes in automated testing of ERP and custom. Its co-founders Vaughn Paladin and Suri Chawla will continue to run the operations. as a fully owned subsidiary of Hexaware Technologies Ltd.

Atul Nishar, Executive Chairman of Hexaware said, "Hexaware's testing practice currently has 400 consultants, 15 clients and contributes to 7.6% of the revenue. This acquisition completes the required set of testing competencies that would allow increase in market share and accelerate growth." To start with, FocusFrame's Mexico center will be scaled up as Hexaware's sixth full fledged global delivery center.

The company has 9 Fortune 500 customers, over 200 employees, while a third of them are located at the development center in Mexico.

Press release here (pdf).

There is a deal brewing in the leading optical networking product company Tejas Networks. The Bangalore-based company is in talks with private equity players and hedge funds to raise funds, reports The Economic Times. According to the report, Tejas is in talks with India-focused hedge fund Sandstone Capital to raise $20 million. The deal may followed by a private equity fund buying out existing investors in Tejas. The Sandstone deal may announced on Tuesday.

Tejas Networks was angel-funded by Guru Raj Deshpande of Sycamore Networks. The company is founded by Sanjay Nayak, Kumar N Shivrajan, and Arnob Roy. The company has raised a total of $50 million in two rounds of investment from investors like Intel Capital, Battery Ventures, ASG Omni, Sycamore Networks, IL&FS and Gabriel Venture Partners.

Read - Hedge funds, PE players eye Tejas Networks