London-based cloud-native digital engineering firm Ciklum announced 100% acquisition of Infogen, a digital engineering services company with headquarters in the United States and Pune, for an undisclosed amount.
Ciklum is one of the portfolio companies of Recognize, a technology investment platform, led by IT industry veterans including former Cognizant CEO Frank D’Souza along with Raj Mehta, Charles Phillips, and David Wasserman.
The British firm, which offers services at the intersection of product engineering and artificial intelligence to enhance customer experience, aims to double down in India, particularly in the cloud modernization domain. In the next two years, Ciklum said it plans to spend $40-50 million in the Indian market.
“This acquisition brings with it deep engineering talent across Microsoft Stack, SalesForce, Cloud Computing and has expanded our capabilities in cutting-edge technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), 3D interactive game and content development to deliver more immersive and engaging solutions opening up new possibilities for their clients,” the statement further said.
On revenue front, while pre-acquisition Ciklum had about 10% of their revenue from the US market, it anticipates this to go up to 15-16% for the combined entity.
Francisco D’Souza, chairman of Ciklum and cofounder and managing partner of Recognize, the majority shareholder in Ciklum, said, “Since our investment in 2020, we have seen meaningful growth in demand for Ciklum’s software solutions and there is significant opportunity to deliver yet more value to Ciklum’s global clients. We continue to bring our experience and network to support Raj and Ciklum’s team to execute on the exciting growth plan that we collectively built. and we are incredibly excited for what the future holds.”
In January 2021, Ciklum received investment from Recognize, a technology investment platform co-founded by D’Souza who is also former CEO of global IT major Cognizant.
“With this deal, Ciklum, currently headquartered in London with a development center in Chennai, propels its drive into the North American market and expands its global delivery footprint to strengthen its position engineering the leading digital products of tomorrow,” Ciklum said in a statement.
Globally, it has software development centres and branch offices in the United States, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Israel, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, UAE and Pakistan. It has started expanding to other parts of Europe including the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In India, Ciklum has around 150 employees primarily in the roles of software engineering, quality assurance and UX/UI. Following the transaction, the India headcount will now increase to 450 employees.
Founded in 2002, Ciklum has over 4,000 engineers, design specialists, product owners and consultants globally helping more than 250 clients reimagine and redefine the future of business and technology.
Over a decade old Infogen has an overall workforce of over 350 employees and specializes in edge technologies such as augmented and virtual reality that will propel Ciklum further to establish a more expansive global presence. Besides the employees, Infogen’s CEO, Dr. Sanjeev Kuwadekar, will continue at Ciklum and drive Infogen’s core services growth.
“We’re excited to have found in Ciklum the perfect partners for taking what we have built at Infogen to the next level,” Kuwadekar said.
The firm aims to double the overall headcount in the next three years.
“The combination of Ciklum and Infogen leverages the complementary capabilities and cultures of each company to drive even greater impact and results for our clients. By aligning with a like-minded company such as Infogen, we operate from a stronger collective operational footprint and with technological advancements across several lines of business,” said Raj Radhakrishnan, CEO of Ciklum.
Source: Economic Times