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Vasudev Bhandarkar, the new CEO and president of the world's first Internet mobile company, Unimobile.com is a happy man. That's because his latest job has offered him more than he had asked for. Bhandarkar joined Unimobile in January from Cellmania.com, a leading wireless destination e-commerce site, and soon realised that he had a job which would be the envy of his ilk. Says Bhandarkar, "When I joined the company, I realised that the company was undersold to me."

Since the launch of its product in August 1999, however, Unimobile's chief can't complain of undervaluation. Worth $10 million, last year, Unimobile's valuation has now jumped to $50 million as it prepares to go in for a third round of funding. Unimobile.com expects a consumer base of around one million by August 2000. In January, 2000, Unimobile services were available in 55 countries. Since then, the number has jumped to 110 countries.

Unimobile is a `virtual phone' which is designed to send text messages to any mobile gadget anywhere in the world. Whenever a user wants to send a message, he merely clicks on the icon on his computer screen to display a cell phone on it and type in the message. The message is instantly relayed to the receiver on his cell phone or his pager wherever he may be. The utility can be downloaded on to the computer from the company's website free of charge.

While Bhandarkar is excited about the product, he is working overtime with his team to make Unimobile a global company. He has already set out a road map which will take him there. He has hired Matt Slavik, who comes from Selectica, a leading provider of intelligent selling system and configuration tools for the Internet.

Bhandarkar's team now consists of Rajesh T Reddy, founder and chairman of Unimobile.com, Matt Slavik, who was with Apple and with Selectica and has around 15 years of experience. Others include, Vikas Murthy, CTO, Alejandro Olabarria, vice-president, European Business Development and Vishal Gupta, Director, Business development, India.

Till recently, Unimobile did not have a marketing programme in place and was being sold through word of mouth. But with Bhandarkar taking over, Unimobile.com plans to aggressively market the product in Asia, Europe and the US and even certain countries in Africa. Over a period of time, there are plans to enter into tie ups with global telecom operators, Internet service providers ( ISPs) and portals to make Unimobile an accessible product.

To this end, Bhandarkar and his team have drawn up a corporate plan.

Efforts will be made to dramatically improve the visual quality of the product, propagate the brand name and allow other companies to offer the product. Unimobile also has the ability to take on different skins by changing the face of the product where the screen can look like a Beetle car or a book or even like mobile phone.

Bhandarkar wants to have an extremely strong marketing programme to drive traffic and also increase the aspirational quality of the product. "We will have a global approach to the product and synergise with local partners," he says. For starters, Unimobile has tied up with ZeeNext which will allow customers to access the portal from the mobile phone. Unimobile is talking to several other Indian portals to offer such services. "We expect every major portal to tie up with us," says Bhandarkar.

So far so good. But what is Unimobile's revenue stream? Revenue is expected from premium services, co-branding of the products with leading portals and service providers and series of tie ups with e-commerce and content providers.

According to Bhandarkar, the company has already started generating revenues. "My job is to drive revenues," says the CEO who once worked for Selectica, which had a $5.5 billion valuation in the market.

Despite the revenue streams in place, Unimobile is not yet looking at breaking even. Even on the aspect of floating an IPO, the company is looking at a valuation of $250 million before raising funds. In March, 2000, the company went in for a second round of funding and has received commitments of around $15 million from a consortium led by Comventures, consisting of a group of venture capital funds who invest in dotcoms.

According to Bhandarkar, the company may go in for a third round of funding early next year and hopes to raise around $40 million. During its first round, the company raised around $1.7 million from Walden International Investment Group, Draper International and K B Chandrashekhar and B V Jagdeesh of US-based Exodus Communication.

Unimobile, formerly known as Gray Cell was started by Rajesh T S Reddy in 1996, when he was reading engineering from a local college in Bangalore.

While others spent their spare time honing their skills in extra-curricular activities, Reddy toiled along from a garage to develop the world's first Internet-to-paging gateway for paging service. A year later, Gray Cell tied up with Pagepoint's Hotline paging to launch E-page, the two-way Internet and e-mail paging service in Bangalore.

The next year, Gray Cell tied up with Satyam Infoway to use their readymade data network to run its new intermedia communication service in the country. In 1999, it tied up with AirTel to provide the first Internet to cellular gateway in India. In early 2000, Gray Cell was rechristened Unimobile.com and shifted its headquarters to the US.

The change of residence was based solely on commercial considerations because the largest market for Unimobile happened to be in the US. Chairman Reddy has also migrated. "Having flipped the company into the US, we were able to view this issue objectively. The company has evolved in the last few years and as it has grown so has the product in the market place.

"We realise the importance of a brand being everything for a consumer product company," says founder chairman Reddy.

Unimobile has its competitors too like phone.com and Saraide and Do Co Mo in Japan. But Unimobile with its platform independent feature from a PC-to anywhere messaging may just have an edge.

Bhandarkar may be loving his new job, but his aspirations are still closely in sync with his erstwhile colleagues. His inspiration is his first boss at Patni Computers, the legendary N R Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani, founder and managing director of Infosys Technologies, respectively. Murthy once told him that when Bhandarkar reached his age, he would be more senior to him. "It still rings in my ears and continues to inspire me," says Bhandarkar.