Nokia Growth Partners, the recently floated venture capital arm of mobile handset major Nokia, has picked up a small stake in Sasken Communication Technologies by investing $3 million. Nokia is one of the key customers of Sasken for which it develops software for handsets and networking equipment. Sasken, which clocked a net profit of Rs 180 million on revenues of Rs 1.66 billion in 2004-05, plans to utilise the funds to fuel its growth by funding working capital requirements and pursuing mergers and acquisitions. Sasken has become the first Nokia Growth Partners portfolio company. The investment in Sasken follows the recent funding it received from Nortel Networks, which invested $10 million in the Bangalore-based telecom R&D firm.
