Mavenir and private equity company Siris Capital signed a recapitalisation transaction with the vendor’s lenders to erase over $1.3 billion in debt while securing $300 million in new financing.

The open RAN and mobile core vendor also concluded a smaller subordinated facility provided by Siris and participating lenders.

Mavenir CEO Pardeep Kohli stated the company’s strengthened balance sheet and lower leverage will allow it to double down “on our software expertise and domain knowledge to deliver a comprehensive, end-to-end, AI-native telco stack, setting Mavenir up for profitable growth in both core and open RAN”.

A representative for Mavenir told Mobile World Live (MWL) the company is “already working with several third-party innovators, including Intel, Nvidia, and Microsoft, to incorporate AI-based capabilities into our Mobile Core and RAN solutions”.

The company’s current headcount is approximately 4,000 employees, according to the representative.

In late 2024, ratings agency S&P Global cast doubt on Mavenir’s ability to cover a $133 million long-term loan obligation due to mature in January.

In May 2024, Mavenir announced it lined a $75 million investment from an existing investor, which followed a $100 million fundraising round in 2023 led by Siris Capital and two new unnamed strategic investors.

While the company is known for its work in the open RAN space with operators such as AT&T, it also generates significant revenue across its packet core business, MDE billing and charging and IMS software.

In January, Kohli told MWL bookings in the recent fiscal year (the period to end-January 2025) were expected to hit at least $650 million, its second-best of all time.

Analyst view
AvidThink founder and principal Roy Chua told MWL recapitalisation provides the company with a longer runway to execute its vision on open RAN “which has seen slower uptake than expected” while continuing to extract value from other areas of operations.

“We’re seeing a desire for cloud-native and cloud-hosted cores, and portions of RAN, in the market and Mavenir’s refocus on core, voice, messaging, and data should allow them to improve their financials while biding time on open RAN,” Chua explained.

He noted there is increasing demand for flexible converged 4G and 5G core offerings in the MVNx/telecom-as-a-service sector, private wireless, and tier 2 and tier 3 operators MNO markets as evidenced by the recent announcement by  Ericsson and Google Cloud and Nokia and Ericsson offering their cores on public clouds like Amazon Web Services.

“Mavenir should benefit from this wave,” he said. “It already has multiple customers doing this like Oxio’s telecom-as-a-service offering which uses their core.”