Happiest Minds plans to go public in three years

The company hopes to double revenue to $150 million in the next three years

Happiest Minds, founded by former chairman of MindTree, is planning to go public in the next three years by which its revenue will double to around $150 million.

The IT services firm, which turned profitable in its fourth year of operation, is also eyeing acquisition in IOT and companies with $10 million in revenue.

Speaking on the sidelines of TiECON Chennai 2016, Happiest Mind’s Chairman Ashok Soota said that the company’s revenue is around $70 million currently and the target is to reach around $150 million, when the company goes public. The company has reported its first ever profit in the fourth year of operation.

“We are planning to go public in the next three years,” he said. Soota founded Happiest Minds in 2011 after leaving Mindtree which he co-founded in 1999 and listed at the Bombay Stock Exchange in 2007.

“We have made profit as we have covered cost of overhead, but now the challenge is clocking healthy profits,” said Soota, who added company’s growth has been led as it focus on digital transformation and IP-led approach.

Today of the company’s overall revenue comes from US, while 12 per cent from India, balance from Europe, Australia, Malaysia, Middle East etc.

The company has so far raised $63 million and has pursued organic growth.  However, going forward, the company is open for acquisitions. It may not be a big acquisition, may be companies which are clocking around $10 million revenue and got presence in IoT .

The company continues to focus on SMAC(social media, analytics and cloud, plus more) technologies, Internet of Things (IoT), security, and customer experience. Digital transformation was the fastest growing segment, and contributed to over half of Happiest Minds’ revenue. Around 10 per cent of sales came from IP offerings.

Soota, who became an entrepreneur at the age of 58, when he founded MindTree said he is not looking into investing in start-ups, instead he is actively involved in mentoring them.

He said, failure rates of new ventures are still in upwards of around 70 per cent and one of the main reasons is lack of strategies. Soota added, earlier start-ups means its IT, today it is not the case of IT alone, but industries which are driven by IT. For example, healthcare, energy, logistics and others which are lucurative.