CRMNext looks at acquisition, US entry to grow

Company to invest about $10 mn in upcoming new market in 3 years

CRMNext, a digital customer relationship management (CRM) company, is looking at acquiring companies for technology and market expansion as part of its plans to grow CRM business.

The company, which caters cloud-based CRM platform to banking, financial services and insurance firms across several countries, is looking at entry into the US market as part of its growth strategy.

"We are looking at acquisitions, both in the technology, research and development space to complement our strengths and also for expanding out presence," said Nishant Singh, founder and CEO of the company.

It is looking for IP driven acquisitions of 3 kinds, small but good IP companies with a ticket size of $1-2 million, reasonable size IP companies that are struggling to scale or have challenges for $4-7 million, and companies that have strong IP and customer-base and will give it entry into important geographies like US, for $10-15 million.

The company is planning to enter the US market in near future and has been looking for an acquisition for the market entry, but has not identified any with strong fundamentals, he added.

It is expecting the US business, once it is started, would break even in the end of second year and the loss in the first year could be managed from the global profitability.

"We're roughly at 7% of global CRM spend, which we hope to reach 20-25% in the next three years, primarily driven by our US market entry," he said.

In 2014, the company raised around RS 42 crore from Norvest Venture Partners, according to reports. Singh says that it was more from a validation perspective and the fund is still available with it.

In next three years, the company is planning to invest close to $10 million in the new upcoming market. In India, the plans are to become the largest player.

"We are currently the third largest player in this space driven purely by IP from our pureplay, cloud digital-CRM platform- Our ambition is to be number 1 in 3 years," said the company official. Infosys and Polaris are the first and second players in the market at present.

The company is expecting to continue its growth at 50% year on year.