Bangalore February 12, 2014:- A new breed of Indian start-ups that stormed into the technology industry with innovative solutions is beginning to attract the attention of large enterprises as well as investors.
Ventures such as Kayako Infotech, Knowlarity Communications and Seclore Technology stand out in the crowded IT world with their services, and now boast of Fortune 500 companies as clients.
“The technology world is getting disrupted massively, thereby opening opportunities for start-ups,” says Alok Goyal, Partner at Helion Venture and former COO of SAP India. Recently, Helion had invested undisclosed sums in Seclore, Linguanext, Kirusa, Jivox, Komli and Pubmatic.
Seclore has so far received investments worth $6 million ( Rs. 37 crore), while Knowlarity has declared $3 million investments. Jivox has got $5.8 million.
Seclore, an IIT Mumbai-incubated company, offers a software that allows owners of documents to control their usage, thus helping companies prevent unauthorised access to information. LinguaNext has developed a solution that translates software into different languages. Kayako Infotech’s helpdesk helps companies connect to their customers easily — either through phones or social media. While these companies operate in different spaces, all of them have a common objective — transform the global enterprise landscape in much the same way as Tata Consultancy Services or Infosys changed the outsourcing landscape.
Take the case of Kayako. According to Shoor, the company is growing at a 35 per cent compound annual growth rate and counts 100 of the Fortune 500 companies as its clients. NASA, MTV, Kraft Foods and John Deere are among its clients. Similarly, LinguaNext has 70 large enterprise customers. Knowlarity, which offers voice response services, has around 5,000 businesses using its product in India. These results have venture capitalists upbeat.
While India has an abysmal record in creating software products — estimated to account for just $2 billion in the $100 billion Indian IT industry — the time may be finally right. “We have invested in these companies as we feel that global tech majors like IBM, SAP or Oracle, which are sitting on cash, will buy these companies or invest in them,” added Helion’s Goyal.
While some Indian companies made attempts in the past to come up with software products, they have had limited success, except for the likes of iFlex, which was acquired by Oracle.
Companies such as Kayako and Knowlarity seem to have learnt from the mistakes made by Indian product companies in the past. Besides, the emergence of cloud computing and social media offer start-ups fresh opportunities, say analysts.- Business Line
