Manthan gears up to raise $50 mn

Expected to be landmark transaction, post Mu Sigma deal

In a move that will pave the way for the exponential growth of the Bangalore-based analytics player — Manthan Systems, global big-ticket private equity players are in various stages of discussions to invest upwards of $50 million in a fresh round of funding.

Manthan Systems, one of the early movers in the analytics space has so far raised around $50 million of funding through multiple rounds which also set the platform for healthy partial exits for the earlier investors in the company. Manthan is understood to be looking to raise fresh resources for business expansions as well as provide partial exits for its existing investors.

With its singular focus on retail, Manthan works with around 100 global retail and consumer group organisations with the likes of McDonald’s, Woolworth, Prada, Haggar, FairPrice, Crocs among a host of others in enabling them to understand how a customer may behave in the near future and empowering the enterprise with the methods to reach the customers and with what sort of offering.

The suite of Manthan solutions, developed and deployed by around 750 of its employees, also aids in identifying problem areas and identify opportunities to tap that next shopper.

Atul Jalan, Founder & CEO, Manthan Systems, told Business Standard, there are a lot of offers from various global private equity funds to explore funding options, but he has not yet decided on any offers yet.

“Analytics is a segment which private equity funds are looking at aggressively and since we are growing at upwards of 80 per cent year-on-year, they feel Manthan is a good platform to invest in,” Jalan said. It is understood there may be some serious interests from strategic players as well. But, according to Jalan, he is not yet ready to take that plunge. “I want to grow Manthan further before I can consider such offers,” he explained.

During early 2012, Norwest Venture Partners invested $15 million in Manthan, which followed earlier rounds of investments from Fidelity, IDG Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) totalling around $35 million. IDG Ventures and DFJ has reaped some returns already.

This move by Manthan comes at a time when another Bangalore-based analytics company Mu Sigma hit the big league when it raised private equity funding last year, with an estimated valuation of $1 billion, after raising $108 million from Sequoia and General Atlantic.

During the first quarter of 2014, private equity and venture capital firms invested a total of close to $900 million in the IT & ITeS sector, predominantly being channelled into BPO and e-commerce verticals.