Becomes First Indian PE Firm To Strike Buyout In US
Indian private equi y poster boy ChrysCapital has struck its first buyout deal, snapping up majority shares n Infogain, a San Francisco headquartered IT consulting company , for $63 million (Rs 403.2 crore). This is also the irst instance of a local private equity firm striking an acquisition in the US.
Infogain's front-end technologies, processes and applications help its retail, health and insurance clients provide a more efficient customer experience. It specilaizes in software product engineering, service automation and mo bility -and counts twenty of the top 1,000 enterprises as clients -for its annualized revenue of about $100 million.
ChrysCapital has the option to acquire 100% of Infogain, which began as an engineering services business, working for some of Silicon Valley's hottest software products startups. After building domain expertise, it went into direct custom application and implementation for clients.
ChrysCapital has been a prolific investor in Indian IT services since its inception 17 years ago. It backed companies such as Mphasis and Spectramind to roll up in the initial years, but later changed investment strategy to buy into heavyweights such as Infosys and HCL Technologies only to exit with blockbuster returns.
“We are now pivoting our tech investment strategy to build a mid-tier platform of new age IT and digital services. We will use Infogain as a vehicle for bolt-on acquisitions to scale up this play ,“ Sanjay Kukreja, MD & Lead Partner, ChrysCapital told TOI. Last year, ChrysCapiatl had purchased a large minority stake in Liquidhub, a Philadelphiabased digital firm working on analytics. Kukreja declined to comment on the specifics of the In ogain deal, including valua ion and the quantum of stake t has acquired. Infogain was ounded by former Intel senior executive Kapil Nanda, who remains as CEO and chairman. Infogain's president of global delivery Eddie Chandhok said the company was increasingly working on mobili y solutions for its clients, who are seeking solutions to connect with their mobile work orce. “What have a higher percentage of onsite employees, n sync with our deep domain expertise, building long-term relationships with larger clients,“ he added.
