ProSIM to raise $5-7 mn in external funding

The privately-held company is exploring various routes including private equity, venture funding, debt or divestment of stake to a bigger company to raise the money, said S Shamasundar, founder and managing director of the Bangalore-headquartered R&D-focussed company which employs close to 50 people. He said, although nothing has been finalised as of now, this might happen by the end of the present fiscal.

ProSIM was founded in 1997 by Shamasundar, who worked in different capacities in Imperial College-London; Drexel University, Philadelphia; Materials Lab and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 2005, the company started focussing on stress analysis and optimisation for industries like power, automotive and aerospace.

Over the years, the company has forged technology partnerships with seven companies which help it to offer a bouquet of offerings for engineering companies including monitoring of damage during maintenance, metallurgical evaluation and analysis of fatigue life of a machine or its components.

Shamasundar said the company had been profitable during the first year, and is now growing at 100 per cent year-on-year, with a strong demand in the domestic market for its solutions and services. The company has so far not gone for any external funding.

Some of the companies in India who use its services are Bharat Forge, Tata Steel, TVS Group, Tata Motors, Kalyani Lemmerz, and public sector organisations and research bodies like DRDO, NAL and HAL.

"Stress analysis and material characterisation are areas of huge opportunities in India and globally. In the power industry alone, it is estimated that any plant which was set up in the