Tata's Tejas Networks announces acquisition of semiconductor firm Saankhya Labs

Tejas Networks has announced that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire 64.40% of shares of Saankhya Labs for INR 283.94 Cr in cash. The initial acquisition of Saankhya shares is expected to close within the next 90 days. "Tejas Networks, upon procuring all necessary consents and approvals, also intends to proceed with acquiring the balance 35.60 per cent shares through a merger process or a secondary acquisition," company said in a statement.

Saankhya was founded in 2007 by technology entrepreneurs with global experience and has developed a wide range of system and semiconductor products for cellular Wireless, Broadcast radios and Satellite communication ground-terminal, which are deployed by customers in India and in international markets. With a rich IPR portfolio and 73 international patents (41 granted, 32 filed), Saankhya is a pioneer in building software-defined radios (SDR), powered by its own SDR chipsets.

"This acquisition shows our continued commitment to expand our wireless product offerings to address the growing market opportunity. Saankhya's products would complement our existing 4G/5G Radio Access Network (RAN) products and position us well for the emerging opportunities in the O-RAN and 5G broadcast space," Tejas Networks CEO and MD Sanjay Nayak said.

Saankhya Labs co-founder and CEO Parag Naik said being part of Tejas Networks gives the company a strong platform to scale up the business for wireless products and technologies in India as well as in international markets.

"Our customers and partners will also benefit from a larger product portfolio and an accelerated road map of our products. This merger will further Saankhya's founding team's vision to build a world-class technology company from India," Naik said.

One Media 3.0 LLC — the largest shareholder of Saankhya — will sell its majority shareholding in the semiconductor firm, and retain a minority shareholding in Tejas post-merger, the statement added.

Tejas Networks designs develops and sells high-performance wireline and wireless networking products to telecommunications service providers, internet service providers, utilities, defence and government entities in over 75 countries. Tejas products utilize programmable, software-defined hardware architecture with a common software code-base that delivers seamless upgrades of new features and technology standards.