Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said it has acquired a “strategic minority stake” in Mumbai-based cloud-based networking solutions provider Cnergee Technologies under the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program.

The stake acquisition will enable Airtel to sharpen its network as a service (NaaS) proposition for small and medium businesses (SMBs) who are looking to accelerate their shift to cloud-based applications, it said in a statement.

As per the company’s press release, Bharti Airtel has acquired an approximately 7 percent stake in Cnergee Technologies at a “mutually agreed pre-money enterprise valuation. The said valuation is not disclosed herein due to reasons of confidentiality”.

Cnergee specializes in integrated networking solutions over the cloud for businesses of all sizes and has developed a range of 5G ready software tools for NaaS that can be deployed at scale to enable zero-touch service provisioning, central remote monitoring, and management of all connected devices with a host of real-time analytics.

In addition, Cnergee’s advanced software tools will boost Airtel’s ‘Work From Anywhere’ solutions portfolio as businesses look to adopt hybrid work models in the post-pandemic world, it added.