In 1995, Anton Mendoza and Siva Sanmuga were attending University of Waterloo Civil Engineering co-op program. They met during one of the work terms as they shared the same employer.

While travelling in Anton’s car for almost one hour each way, they started to talk about starting a business together. The intention was to find developers overseas to work on software projects. On one of Anton’s trips, one of the contacts informed the need of setting up a callback switch process calls originated in emerging markets and terminated in Western countries.

At that time, Siva introduced Mamoon Rashid to Anton and the three founded Telcan. Mamoon, also a Civil Engineering student, had software development experience and was the leading brain in developing the first Telcan switch platform.

The first hardware was a 386 Tandy computer donated by Anton’s father. Mamoon developed the first callback switch and billing using Visual Voice software and a 4 port Dialogic analog card. With this setup Telcan contracted a dozen international companies.

Telcan founders were operating part time for more than 2 years while still attending school. Right after graduation in 1998, Anton started to work full time for Telcan, becoming the first employee the company had. The company acquired about $15,000 capital from the founder’s families and used it to setup equipment at a collocation space in New York, buy a digital card and pay deposits to carriers. And this is how it all started.

Milestones

1997
- Telcan was founded by Siva Sanmuga, Anton Mendoza and Mamoon Rashid.
- The company purchased a voice card, developed a basic call processing software and built a web site in order to provide international callback service. The first 5 clients were contracted that year, billing about 6,000 USD/month.

1998
- The founders graduated from University and Anton started to work full time. His salary was partly subsidized by Siva and Mamoon, who had full time jobs as engineers in other companies.

1999
- The company moved to an office.
- The company had 5 employees.

2000
- Telcan was providing international callback service to resellers around the word as well as selling the service online.

2003
- The company started providing calling cards, toll free numbers and virtual PBX thru its platform to end users, agents and private-label resellers in the US/Canada market.
- Callback was still the main business providing most of the revenue for Telcan.

2004
- Callture was created as a sister company of Telcan.
- The first VoIP application was developed.

2005
- Callback business considerably declined and toll free service was still strong.

2006
- Callture was divided into two departments Retail and Wholesale. Retail would provide business phone services to SMBs. Wholesale would provide prepaid platform services to entrepreneurs and service providers.
- As callback revenues continue to decline, Wholesale focused on VoIP callshop services to international dealers mainly in Middle East and Africa.
- The company invested heavily in developing the platform, focusing on calling cards, VoIP, pbx and retail portals.

2007
- The wholesale department shifted focus on marketing the platform for prepaid phone cards and prepaid retail portals for pinless services in North America, as these products showed maturity.
- The company adds new international carriers to the LCR, dramatically improving pricing, redundancy and voice quality.

2008
- Adds a wide array of reporting tools for service providers.

2009
- Introduces value-added services to its white-label ecommerce offering.
- Launches IVR apps for activations, credit card recharges and promotional programs.

2010
- Adds international mobile top up to its platform.
- Dramatically improves its VoIP phone service.

2011
- Introduces wireless MVNO services to its platform clients.
- Launches new POS portal.
- Revamps web site www.callture.com

Callture runs two business units: the Retail Services Unit and the Platform Outsourcing Solutions Unit. The Retail Unit provides value-added voice services to businesses and consumers. Business services include its signature Virtual PBX with its business-class features. Other business services include enhanced toll free service, virtual international phone numbers, prepaid long distance and click-to-talk service.

Consumer services include unlimited long distance, calling cards and pc2phone service. All Callture services include a user friendly online portal with automated order processing. Callture´s Retail Unit has also developed an online affiliate program with instant signup and reoccurring commissions for life.

The Platform Outsourcing Unit offers end-to-end telecom outsourcing solutions for entrepreneurs around the world. Callture´s web-based platform contains proprietary software 10 years in the making. Callture offers a wholesale model, where clients concentrate on pricing, distributing and selling their own private label products and services; and leave all the technical and provisioning aspects to us. Callture´s on-demand model makes it a necessity to help clients grown their volume and succeed in minimum time.

Mamoon Rashid
President and CEO

Mr. Rashid is an Engineering graduate of the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. He is a co-founder of Telcan in 1997, and Callture in 2004. Mr. Rashid has over 15 years experience in the IT and automotive industries. Before becoming President of Callture in 2004, he occupied the position of Director of Engineering of Telcan Inc. since 1997. During that period, Mr. Rashid lead the engineering team at Telcan in building the proprietary platform and developing the complete IT infrastructure, which Callture uses today.

As leader of Callture, Mr. Rashid ensures the company continues to grow financially and technologically. Mr. Rashid directs and compensates employees for making clients happy, which results in innovative technology development and financial prosperity.


Siva Sanmuga
Vice President – Retail Services Unit

Mr. Sanmuga is also an Engineering graduate of the University of Waterloo with a Master degree in Systems Design. He is a co-founder of Telcan and Callture. Mr. Sanmuga has over 10 years experience in Management and Finances. He previously occupied the position of Director of Finances at Telcan, where he managed the development of many important projects, including the complete development of Telcan’s CRM system and financial infrastructure.

Since his new position at Callture, Mr. Sanmuga has helped his unit successfully launch new value-added services to the North American market. At the same time, Mr. Sanmuga dedicates several weekly hours as a volunteer to his local community.


Anton Mendoza
Vice President – Platform Outsourcing Solutions Unit

Mr. Mendoza is also an Engineering graduate of the University of Waterloo. As a co-founder of Telcan in 1997, and Callture in 2004, he has over 10 years experience in the telecommunications sector, with focus in the international long distance market and IP telephony platform solutions.

As an international traveler, he has seen first hand all regulatory and technology changes around the world, from the legacy systems to the latest IP technology. He continues directing his unit to help customers succeed in delivering voice applications to their users.