It delivered its first product, ImMediate, for the voice over cable (VoC) market within six months of its existence. The product is currently undergoing interoperability testing at Cisco, which is expected do the beta trial with one of its customers. The company is now working on its next product in the area of advanced intelligent network (AIN) services in VoIP. This will complement its first product for a complete set of infrastructure software solutions to telecom majors.

BayPackets, a hot seed-stage Silicon Valley based high-tech start up, was set up in February 2000 by Sanjeev Chawla and his two classmates at Roorkee Engineering College, Anurag Goel and Gaurav Goel. Headquartered at Menlo Park, California, the company incorporated its fully-owned subsidiary, BayPackets Technologies India, the very next month and also pledged $8 million for it. Its strategy is to develop new technology products at the Indian operations to cater to its key target customers—the local exchange carriers and Internet service providers.

The company foresees a huge market potential among telecom service providers (TSPs). It plans to develop solutions for converged networks. While its solutions are targeted for the VoIP-based next-generation networks, it also aims at helping TSPs migrate to the new technology. Apart from VoIP, BayPackets is positioning itself as a technology developer for the next generation of telecom services infrastructure in the convergence space, such as VoATM, VoDSL, VoPacket cable and wireless networks. With the telecom scenario changing fast—voice is getting packetized and sent over different transmission media—it’s sizzling time for companies like BayPackets.

The first step was partnering with global leaders like Cisco and Syndeo for its VoC product, and Lucent Technologies, Empowertel and ViCorp for its VoIP product. It has also worked out an alliance with Accelerated Networks for VoDSL. With these tie-ups, BayPackets is creating a market for its two products, VoIP and VoC.

These are not the only reasons for the company to sizzle in 2001. There is also the interest of the VC community in the company. It got its first round of funding, of $2.5 million, by Silicon Valley-based venture capitalists Telesoft Partners and Anthillion Ventures, and a few angel investors. The company is in an advanced stage of closing the second round of investment of $30 million by February 2001. DQ

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