Bharti Airtel, the second-largest telco in India, has acquired a 25% stake in Lavelle Networks, an SD-WAN based startup. Lavelle Networks is a Bengaluru based company, and the agreement between both companies are subject to regulatory approvals. Lavelle Networks specialises in Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solutions, and the home-grown company already serves a range of industry segments. Thousands of Indian enterprises have been connected by Lavelle Networks to the country’s largest e-commerce networks and financial institutions.
Move to Cloud by More Businesses Resulting in a Surge for SD-WAN Solutions
More and more enterprises are moving to cloud-based applications for serving their customers in today’s world. This has resulted in a higher demand for SD-WAN solutions as they have the agility to serve enterprise customers in a cloud-based hybrid IT environment. Apalak Ghosh, Associate Director and Head of ICT, Frost & Sullivan South Asia, said SD-WAN is a very necessary arsenal for the enterprises if they want to transform and future proof their network infrastructure. Between 2022-2026, the market of SD-WAN is expected to grow at a CAGR of 55%. According to a survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan, about 62% of the enterprises in India plan to deploy SD-WAN across their organisation within the next one or two years. This acquisition from Bharti Airtel is a boost to the Airtel Business Network as a service (NaaS), a digital platform built to address the growing digital needs of enterprises in India. Airtel Business will also offer software-defined (SD) services as a part of its NaaS, and thus this strategic investment into Lavelle Networks is going to pay off in the medium-to-long run. It will further mean that Airtel Business will be bringing in ‘Made in India’ products and services for its enterprise customers. Airtel Business already serves over a million businesses in the country with varying needs of digital and IT products and services.
