Telstra Ventures, the corporate venturing unit set up in 2011 by telecommunications group Telstra, has invested $18.3m in US-based Kony Solutions, a corporate mobile application platform specialist. The deal also includes a reseller partnership, enabling Telstra to resell Kony’s solutions to its large established customer base.
Kony will use part of the funding to further its expansion into the Asia Pacific market, develop its cloud business by investing further in product development, marketing, sales and operations, and accelerate growth in the U.S.
Raj Koneru, Kony’s chief executive officer, said: “Kony’s 2013 fiscal year was record-breaking; we grew 90% year over year, added the largest number of enterprise customers, and cloud expert Abhay Parasnis joined as our president and COO from Oracle.”
Telstra Ventures Managing Director Mark Sherman said Telstra’s investment in Kony aligned to its strategy of developing new growth businesses and would build capability in Telstra’s domestic mobiles portfolio. “For Telstra this is a win-win – we are investing in an innovative company and adding immediate value by being able to offer Kony’s products to our business and enterprise customers.”
In May 2012 Kony completed a Series C funding of $15m, led by Insight Venture Partners and Georgian Partners. Insight also led the company’s series previous round in 2011, which was valued at $19m.