Founded in September 2000, Netspira was a software vendor for telco operators specialized in solutions for GPRS traffic management. Acquired by Ericsson in 2005, the company was integrated into Ericsson’s R&D group.
In September of 2000, Netspira founders decided to leave their jobs and develop a software platform that permitted the interconnection of GPRS/UMTS networks with external IP networks (internet, private enterprise networks, etc.), and the implementation of advanced mechanisms for prepayment, content invoicing, virtual private networks, etc.
With a small public grant, they signed an agreement with Airtel (which today is Vodafone Spain), which implied the use of resources from Airtel to the specification and test of the product. This initial relationship would develop over the months to follow.
In October 2001, they start working together with Bullnet in order to advance in the closing of a funding round, which concluded successfully in Q2 2002.
The main investment hypotheses were the imminent arrival of the “mobile internet” and the subsequent massive adoption of GPRS networks, driving the need for telecom operators to acquire the tools necessary to adopt pre-payment schemas for data traffic.
After three years, Netspira was acquired by Ericsson in June 2005 and fully integrated in Ericsson’s R&D group.