Promoted by three entrepreneurs, two of whom have engineering and computer science backgrounds with post graduate degrees from American universities, Signet was set up in end-1998.

The company has already deployed some of the investment from Citibank in a sales and marketing office in California according to Pallav Bhatt, one of the company's promoters.

Signet is into specialized software development in the areas of networking, including areas like network protocols, drivers, network management, telecom management and network directory services.

"We have been providing solutions to leading overseas clients including one of the largest network hardware vendors in the world," Bhatt told eFE.

The company was focussing on overseas clients and had just one domestic client at the moment, he said, adding, "We have plans to establish a presence in Europe where we could service companies like Vodafone."

The company plans to offer solutions in telecom management to a variety of service providers which would include ISPs and other connectivity providers.Signet currently employs a team of 35 engineers and plans to expanding this to 150 people (engineers as well as support staff) by March 2001. The company's equity was held by the three promoters until Citibanks's investment. The promoters continue to hold a majority equity stake in the company, according to Bhatt.