[caption id="attachment_1193" align="alignright" width="145" caption="ValueFirst New Enterprise Associates"][/caption] ValueFirst Messaging has secured $6 million in a Series B funding round from New Enterprise Associates, just as Medianama had reported in December via independent sources. In its first round of funding, it had secured a $0.25 million investment from Emergic Ventures. The $6 million will be used to expand the company's sales and marketing coverage to 35 cities. The company also plans to double its workforce from the current 200 employees, said its CEO Vishwadeep Bajaj. ValueFirst will launch voice based services in the first quarter of next fiscal and is moving towards a unified messaging solution offering, Bajaj said. The investment will also go towards beefing up its subsidiaries SpotOn and ValueFirst Connect. The Mobile VAS firm is also bullishly targeting a client list of 10,000 customers from its current base of 1000. NEA India's Executive Director Ben Mathias, Executive Director has said in the press release, "NEA's direct investments in India are primarily in mid-to-late-stage projects. We look forward to working with India's best and brightest entrepreneurs in telecom, media, alternative energy, technology-enabled services and IT infrastructure." Other recent developments in the Mobile VAS arena include Mobile2Win India's merger with Altruist, One97's $30 million investment in growth and MCarbon's fund raising from Canaan Partners.
