The funding raised by Circles.Life from Warburg Pincus will help the company further grow its business and also expand in new markets, potentially in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Currently, the company has operations in Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia.

Circles.Life plans to leverage Warburg Pincus’ expertise and networks of resources to attract global business leaders and partners to its team and grow effectively.

According to co-founder Abhishek Gupta, Circles.Life also plans to launch more “non-telco-related” digital services to increase customer engagement.

Saurabh Agarwal, managing director at Warburg Pincus told the media, “We see a tremendous growth opportunity for Circles.Life, particularly within the rapidly digitising mobile market in the Asia-Pacific. The industry has not adapted quickly enough to provide a seamless experience to its customers in this new age, creating a large white space for technology-enabled challengers.”

Investors that have previously invested in Circles.Life include Sequoia Capital India, Singapore’s Economic Development Board investment arm EDBI and Silicon Valley’s Founders Fund.

According to reports published earlier, Circles.Life said it would spend more than $250 million to expand its business in five prominent markets by the end of 2020.

Currently, Circles. Life has a market share of 5 percent in Singapore, and reportedly, the company has an annualised growth rate of over 200 percent. The company also revealed that its average revenues per user (ARPUs) have consistently been 10 percent higher when compared to the rest of the market.

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Axiata in a statement told the media that, “Axiata has created significant value uplift and attractiveness for its operations and as evidenced in the last one year. We have attracted a lot of suitors to partner with us and seeking to acquire our assets including Telenor, Mitsui, Sumitomo, among others.”

Besides Hutchison’s interest, Axiata’s wireless tower business has also attracted takeover interest in recent months.

Axiata, which is Malaysia’s biggest wireless carrier, previously held talks with Norway’s Telenor to merge their Asian operations. The deal was set to create a company with more than 300 million customers spread across Asia but the proposed merger was called off. According to reports, complexities in the proposed transaction led to both the companies mutually agreeing to end discussions.

With the merger with Telenor being called off, Axiata might consider merging its Indonesian business with that of Hutchison’s.

Earlier this year, Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong bought stakes in Hutchison Telephone Company and Hutchison 3G from Japanese mobile phone operator Docomo.

Hutchison Asia Telecommunications, which houses CK Hutchison’s telecom business in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, had about 45.7 million active customer accounts. According to reports, Indonesia accounted for 86 percent of Hutchison Asia’s total revenue in the first six months of 2019 which is $472 million.

Last month, CK Hutchison became the latest telecommunication group to restructure its assets into separate operation and infrastructure units. With its decision to jump into the tower bandwagon, the company will boast a portfolio of 28,500 towers spread across Europe.

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