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Now hear this: Voice messaging is talk of industry [NJBIZ (NJ)](NJBIZ (NJ) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Kirusa's rapid growth worldwide is spurred by audio technology Sometimes even the most devoted of smartphone users worries technology has made connecting with others so impersonal. But Kirusa's got apps for that. Founded by CEO Inderpal Mumickin 2001, New Providencebased Kirusa is a social media and services provider for the telecommunications industry that develops ways to maintain personality with technological advancements. Its newly introduced InstaVoice app, for example, makes it possible to send voice messages to those that don't have a smartphone, using a text messagebased program that alerts the user when a voice message is received and allows the person to listen and send a reply. The service also provides text alerts for missed calls for when the user's phone is off. "You can leave a message for someone, click on it and listen to it yourself, too. Sometimes you don't know if you left a clear message or forgot to mention something, but here you can click and listen back to your own voice," said Baldeep Dua, Kirusa's chief financial officer. Without Dua, Kirusa wouldn't be aggressively expanding in emerging markets right now, and opening a market via InstaVoice in the U.S. But Dua joined Kirusa in 2008, when the company wasn't even profitable. "I had spent six years at Bell Labs in Murray Hill working with telecomm technologies, and I wanted to take ideas and grow them," Mumick said. "So I started a business that didn't make any money for the first two years, but allowed me to develop an idea further." When Dua came aboard, Kirusa consolidated - and found profitable success. "Revenues have been almost doubling each year and costs have been contained," Dua said. Dua - the winner of this year's NJBIZ CFO of the Year award for private companies with revenue up to $25 million - also oversaw Kirusa's massive international expansion, growing in markets in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, where the company gets 80 percent of its revenue. Though Kirusa works with more than 35 global carriers - servicing more than 80 million mobile subscribers every month and more than 1 billion monthly calls - Mumick still finds New Jersey to be a challenging environment for companies like his. "I wish New Jersey had more of a psyche and culture of startups in the technology space," Mumick said. And while Mumick also has found it difficult to attract the right talent, he has found financial success with Qualcomm, one of the largest players in the telecommunications space, and Accel, one of the largest venture funds in the country responsible for backing companies such as Facebook and Groupon. "Having an investment from them also gives us insight into some of the new technologies coming up," Mumick said. One more thing When connecting with celebrities on Twitter, do you sometimes wish you'd be able to hear them read their Tweets aloud? With Celeb Connect, Kirusa makes that possible. "We make it possible for you to hear the voice of the celebrity," Dua said. Kirusa has teamed up with more than 75 international celebrities so far with whom subscribers can interact and engage by listening and responding to their exclusive vocalized updates. The biz in brief NAME: Kirusa Inc. HEADQUARTERS: New Providence FINANCIALS: Undisclosed, but Kirusa's growth rate has been 100 percent year over year for the last three years. EMPLOYEES: 13 in New Jersey, 115 worldwide. E-mail to: [email protected] On Twitter: @megfry3 (c) 2014 Journal Publications Inc. |