October 17, 2006

Garnett & Helfrich Capital Expands Venture Buyout Operations To India

Firm Makes Investment in Indian Mobile Company Celunite

Bangalore, India and Menlo Park, Calif.,—Garnett & Helfrich Capital, a private equity firm specializing in venture buyouts (VBOs), today announced that it will expand its operations to India. Garnett & Helfrich will locate their new office in the financial center of Mumbai with the goal of supporting its portfolio companies in the region and identifying new acquisition targets for its venture buyout fund. Garnett & Helfrich also announced today its investment in Celunite, a leading provider of open mobile platform software and services with development teams located across India.

“India is a hub of technology innovation and talent, thus it is critical that we continue to expand our portfolio companies’ presence in the region by helping them build new partnerships, recruit local talent, and identify and evaluate acquisition targets,” said Terry Garnett, Managing Director, Garnett & Helfrich Capital. “We will also leverage our Mumbai-based operations to identify new investments in leading technology sectors such as open source mobile platforms like Celunite.”

Garnett & Helfrich has acquired a controlling stake in Celunite, a privately-held company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California and development centers in Pune and Hyderabad, India. In line with its venture buyout model, Garnett & Helfrich will work closely with Celunite and its CEO, Mahesh Veerina, to enhance the company’s management, product and market strategies. The Celunite transaction is Garnett & Helfrich’s fourth and most recent venture buyout investment.

“Our partnership with Garnett & Helfrich Capital provides us with both financial backing and access to a team of operations experts who can help Celunite capitalize on the tremendous market opportunity for a disruptive open source mobile platform,” said Mahesh Veerina, CEO of Celunite. “Our partnership with Garnett & Helfrich provides Celunite with a strong foundation upon which to attain our desired growth trajectory for the company.”

“As the wireless industry has matured, wireless carriers, mobile handset manufacturers and others in the wireless industry will benefit from Celunite’s open platform strategy,” said Garnett. “We found Celunite’s business model compelling as it demonstrates that this is yet another arena where open source software is considered a viable alternative to the more costly and limited proprietary alternatives.”

Since Garnett & Helfrich was formed in 2004, the firm has worked closely with its portfolio companies, including Wyse Technology, Ingres Corporation and Blade Network Technologies, to help cultivate relationships with key partners, recruit local talent, expand research and development and identify acquisition targets in India. The following highlights some of Garnett & Helfrich’s experience in India to date:

• Wyse Technology has assembled a global research and engineering team housed in a 24,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility in Bangalore that is being led by newly appointed VP Raj Sharma. The company has a partnership with Ingram Micro India to help expand its reseller channel in the region which has already won the business of local companies including Kingfisher Airlines and Kanbay International.
• To capitalize on growing demand worldwide and in India for open source software, Ingres Corp. is opening business operations in India and has appointed Vivek Bhatnagar as Country Director, Business Development and Global Alliances. Mr. Bhatnagar will be responsible for Ingres’s operations in India as well as growing Ingres’s alliances with Indian global and domestic system integrators, ISVs, and channel partners. Today, Ingres supports customers and partners across all of India’s major industries including energy/utilities, financial services, government, manufacturing and transportation/logistics.

About Garnett & Helfrich Capital

Formed in March 2004, Garnett & Helfrich Capital is a $350 million private equity fund focused exclusively on the emerging venture buyout segment for mid-sized technology spinouts. The firm specializes in spinning out businesses from large global technology companies and growing them as focused, standalone businesses. Investments include Wyse Technology (world leader in thin-client computing), Ingres (open source enterprise database company spun out from Computer Associates) and Blade Network Technologies (an industry-leading supplier of network infrastructure divested from Nortel Networks). More information is available at www.garnetthelfrich.com.

About Celunite, Inc.

Celunite, Inc. is a leading provider of Linux-based open mobile platform solutions and services for the mobile industry. Industry forces like the convergence of cellular and broadband wireless technologies, explosion in mobile content, mobile Internet, and the adoption of open mobile technology are reshaping the mobile platform software landscape and increasing the velocity of new services delivered to mobile devices. Celunite enables mobile chipset vendors, handset OEMs, ODMs and mobile operators by providing a complete commercial grade handset platform technology along with integration and customization services. Celunite is a private company financed by leading private equity firm Garnett & Helfrich Capital, with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California and R&D facilities in Pune and Hyderabad, India. For more information please visit www.celunite.com.

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