Two routes from a business to your phone
Your bank's OTP reaches your phone by one of two routes. Either way, your mobile operator delivers it in the end.
Box 1 is a global platform. Box 2 is an Indian company connected directly to Jio, Airtel and Vi. A global platform sometimes passes a message for an Indian phone on to a company in box 2, which delivers it to the operator. Tap a title in the diagram to jump to its companies.
Messaging and calling APIs 6 companies
A business does not build its own connection to every mobile operator. Instead, its developers use an API: a few lines of code in the business's app that send an SMS, a WhatsApp message, an email or a phone call through a platform. The platform delivers the message and reports back whether it arrived. This is called CPaaS (communications platform as a service).
VonagePart of EricssonVonage started by selling phone calls over the internet to homes. It then bought Nexmo, an API platform, and is now one of the largest companies in this field. Ericsson bought Vonage in 2022, to offer features of its 5G networks to developers through APIs. Its engineering in India is in Bengaluru.BengaluruHiring now
SinchSinch, a Swedish company, grew by buying a company for each channel: messaging, calling, email (through Mailgun) and checking phone numbers. It is one of the few companies that sends a large share of the world's business messages over its own connections to operators.
TelnyxTelnyx runs its own private network to the operators, instead of renting one. On top of it, it sells calling, messaging and SIM cards for connected machines.
PlivoPlivo is Indian in origin: its first code was written in Bengaluru, and it launched from San Francisco. It sells only APIs, for calls and messaging, and now also voice bots that answer phone calls.
ExotelExotel began as India's cloud telephony company. It made the masked-number calls and the "press 1 for…" phone menus that most Indian consumer apps used before they built their own. It still sells calling and messaging APIs, alongside the contact-centre software that it now mainly sells.BengaluruHired recentlySee alsoContact centre software (CCaaS)
SuprSendSuprSend sells a layer above messaging platforms. A developer sends a notification through one API, and SuprSend decides whether it goes by email, app notification, SMS or WhatsApp.See alsoDevOps and CI/CD toolsIndian business-messaging companies 4 companies
Most business messages in India, such as OTPs, reach the operators through companies that the operators have connected to directly. These companies are called aggregators. They collect messages from thousands of businesses and pass them on to Jio, Airtel and Vi.
Route Mobile LtdPart of ProximusRoute Mobile is based in Mumbai, and its shares are traded on the stock market. Proximus, a Belgian telecom operator, owns most of it. It also sells an SMS firewall: the system that operators use to check and filter the business messages sent to them.
ValueFirstValueFirst, in Delhi NCR, is one of the oldest Indian business-messaging companies. It has added cloud calling and a platform for AI chat conversations.
What's changing
Operators are starting to sell their networks' features as APIs.
Until now, these companies used the operator's network only to deliver messages and calls. Operators are now opening other features of their networks to developers through APIs. For example, an app can ask the operator to confirm that a phone number belongs to the SIM in the phone, instead of sending an OTP. Ericsson bought Vonage to sell features like these.
Companies: ingrid's company map. Hiring signals: postings feed of 5 Nov 2026.