Kochhar and NDA advise on Aditya Birla PE investment in Alphion

Aditya Birla Capital Advisors, private equity arm of Aditya Birla Financial Services Group, has invested Rs. 95 crore ($18.5 million) in Alphion India, a subsidiary of US-based Alphion Corporation. The investment has been made from Rs. 880 crore Aditya Birla Private Equity – Fund I, according to VCCircle..The Mumbai office of Kochhar & Co. advised Alphion with a team led by Partners Rajarshi Chakrabarti and Rupali Sharma..Nishith Desai Associates advised Aditya Birla with a team led by Senior Associate Ruchir Sinha..Alphion manufactures Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTx) access systems, subsystems and integrated photonic devices. Their access systems offer optical networking solutions for the rapidly emerging FTTx market and the portfolio includes a full range of products for central office, outside plant, customer premise and network management. Alphion has operations in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, New Delhi and Gurgaon. Alphion is also developing all optical PON (passive optical network) network extension solutions to extend the reach of broadband services..Alphion was founded in 2000 by Dr. Bharat P. Dave who has spent over 15 years at Bell Labs. The US-based parent is backed by a host of investors including Goldman Sachs, ICCP Venture Partners, Tallwood Venture Capital, Narra Venture Capital and Axiom Venture Partners..VCCircle reports, this is the fifth investment of Aditya Birla Private Equity – Fund I. Its most recent investment was Rs 62.5 crore in GEI Industrial Systems Ltd, a manufacturer of air-cooled heat exchangers and condensers. Another investment was into CARE, India’s second largest credit analysis and research institution, which has recently filed for an IPO.