India’s smartphone boom lures another global player: B2X acquires Mumbai’s TSS

Indians are dropping their feature phones for smartphones faster than anywhere else in the world. That’s luring almost every global smartphone industry player to the country. The latest entrant is B2X Care Solutions, a German cloud technology company providing customer care solutions for smartphones. It acquired majority share in Mumbai-based The Service Solutions (TSS) after raising US$15 million in a series B funding round led by Earlybird Venture Capital.

Customer care services are taking off in India as businesses gradually wake up to the impact they have on customer acquisition, retention, and cost management. Technologist Sreevathsa Prabhakar spotted the gap and started TSS in 2009. TSS is currently an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) and Apple Authorized Reseller (AAR). It also develops and licenses its ‘after-market support platform’ software to OEMs, distributors, and service providers.

“For us to be successful in India, we know that it will require very strong local capabilities. TSS is a rising star in India and their cloud-based capability completes the B2X technology roadmap. In addition, the TSS leadership team has a strong background and is well connected in our industry in India, which opens up great opportunities for future growth,” Thomas Berlemann, CEO of B2X, said in a company statement.

With the acquisition by B2X, all TSS service stores will be rebranded as B2X Care Solutions. It will be actively hiring talent in India for its global expansion plans.

See: Yahoo acquires one-year-old Bangalore startup Bookpad