Strong growth at Mu Sigma despite management upheaval

Indian data analytics firm Mu Sigma has reported a 22% growth in net profits at Rs 462.9 crore on a revenue of Rs 809.5 crore for 2015-16, in a year when the company’s founder Dhiraj Rajaram was sued by a former investor and a dispute with his partner Ambiga ended in a divorce. 

Mu Sigma is only one out of eight Indian Unicorns that have shown consistent profits over the years, even as Rajaram took control of the company with a 51.6% stake in October 2016 after he bought shares of his ex-wife. 

Ambiga had taken over as chief executive officer of Mu Sigma in February, a month before Rajaram was sued in March by Aon Corp founder Patrick G Ryan accusing him of cheating hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The lawsuit alleged that Rajaram had bought back Mu Sigma shares citing dull growth prospects of the company. Ryan had invested $1.5 million in Mu Sigma in 2006 and was paid $9.3 million to sell his shares in 2010. 

Mu Sigma had reported a profit of Rs 380 crore and revenue of Rs 684.2 crore in 2014-15, regulatory filings data sourced by Tofler showed. Mu Sigma stated that the growth in revenue and profits came on the hand of growth in its business during FY16. 

“The increase in revenue and net profit is accredited to increase in turnover in comparison to the last financial year. No dividend was declared for the current financial year due to conservation of profits of the company,” said Mu Sigma in the filing.

Rajaram and Ambiga, who founded Mu Sigma a decade ago, built India’s largest independent analytics company helping firms such as Microsoft, Walmart Stores and Dell Inc to get more revenue from their customers. 

They also built an in-house classroom to train young graduates to look at analytics as a career that helps spawn an industry focused on analytics. 

The Mu Sigma founder has the backing of its investors General Atlantic, MasterCard, Fidelity Investments and Sequoia Capital, which collectively put nearly $200 million in Mu Sigma. 

India’s analytics industry is estimated to be around $2 billion, according to software industry lobby Nasscom, which is expected to grow ten-fold to $20 billion by 2025.

While growth remained strong, gross margins of Mu Sigma fell by 1.5% to 36.6% during 2015-16 as calculated on earnings and profit before taxes.