China-India IoT company Borqs gets funded by Qualcomm Ventures

BENGALURU: Borqs International Holding Corp, an IoT company, with major R&D centers in Bengaluru and Beijing, has announced that as part of a preferred stock financing, it has closed an investment led by Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated.

Borqs is a global provider of smart connected devices and cloud service solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry. Borqs was founded in 2007 by veterans in the communication technologies industry from Canada, China, India and the United States.

Borqs' investors include Intel Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, SK Telecom China Fund, Keytone Ventures and GSR Ventures. After the Qualcomm Ventures investment, Borqs has a shareholder base that includes two of the largest chip manufacturers in the world.

"Qualcomm Ventures is already an active investor in several Indian startups. Our investments in India help fuel innovation and foster promising startups, such as Borqs, that are contributing to the mobile and Internet of Things ecosystem. This investment will fund additional engineering capabilities to invigorate advances in the development of autonomous products and a connected society. Qualcomm hopes to find future opportunities to work with Borqs to share leading-edge and innovative 4G phone design expertise with Indian and global OEMs in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of Design in India," said Karthee Madasamy, Vice President and Managing Director, Qualcomm Ventures India.

Pat Chan, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Borqs, said, "We are honored to have a strategic investment from Qualcomm Ventures. The India market is growing rapidly and represents a sizable revenue opportunity for Borqs' business. We are committed to working on developing new technologies for the global market." Hareesh Ramanna, General Manager of Connected Solutions and Managing Director of Borqs India, further commented, "Borqs has a strong R&D team in India and we have been working closely with Qualcomm in the past several years to develop products being used worldwide. Given our focus on innovation, Borqs is committed to supporting the Indian Government's Made-In-India initiative and Qualcomm's Designed-In-India initiative."

On December 27, 2016, Pacific Special Acquisition announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Borqs. Upon the closing under the merger agreement, Borqs will become the operating entity of the combined company, and it is anticipated that the shareholders of Borqs will collectively own approximately 78% of Pacific's outstanding ordinary shares, and Pacific's existing shareholders will retain an ownership interest of approximately 22%. It is expected that after the closing, Pacific will change its name to Borqs Technologies Inc.