Mavenir conducted a $100 million fundraising round involving its largest equity holder and two new unnamed strategic investors, as it looks to broaden the reach of its open RAN portfolio overseas.

The funding round was anchored by private equity company Siris Capital.

Mavenir CEO Pardeep Kohli (pictured) told Mobile World Live (MWL) the new investors “have a vested interest in the success of open RAN and they’ve invested in the company to grow together with us”.

In 2022 the company raised a total of $250 million across two funding rounds, taking on public debt for the first time in the second.

Omdia analyst James Crawshaw told MWL the latest round sends a message Mavenir is still in the market for the long term even if the promise of open RAN is taking longer to materialise than hoped.

Kohli said the latest funding will be used to expand into new markets.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done in the open RAN, so this is more on getting our products ready.”

Kohli explained a recently-axed US marketing team was less necessary than teams overseas where the company is less well-known and “the languages and the local events are different”.

Mavenir made cuts to its broader marketing department in 2022. Kohli said he expects staff numbers to remain at around 5,000, having previously predicted a rebound.

The executive also downgraded his 2023 revenue forecast from more than $1 billion to around $600 million.

“We expect open RAN adoption to go faster this year”, he said, citing wins with Deutsche Telekom, Virgin Media O2 and “more brownfield operators”.