Chennai-based early-stage and sector-agnostic investment firm Fulcrum Venture India has invested Rs 8 crore ($1.4 million) in Congruent Solutions Pvt Ltd, an IT services provider specialising in pension administration industry, for 20 per cent stake in the company. The deal puts a post-money valuation of Rs 40 crore for Congruent.
Incorporated in 1986, Congruent provides a host of retirement administration and technology development services to various companies in the US, the UK and Singapore including Fortune 500 companies. The firm has two offices in Chennai, a production delivery centre for tech solutions and a global delivery centre where all its back office administration is handled.
The fund raised will be used to expand its services business and commercialise COREDC, its proprietary record keeping system (RKS).
“Congruent Solutions, through its clients in technology services, has developed domain expertise in the US pension industry and is looking to specialise in this segment going forward. RKS is at the heart of the pension providers in the US. Earlier, the entire industry was using a legacy mainframe solution, which was very cumbersome and expensive to maintain,” said Krishna Ramanathan, founder-partner of Fulcrum.
He also added that Fulcrum, along with the company’s management, outlined an aggressive action plan geared towards improving billing efficiency and enhancing sales.
Fulcrum has been focusing on early-stage investments, chasing deals in sectors such as pharma, niche retail, consumer durables, education, IT & technology.
Last year, it made two investments including Richfeel Trichology Centre, which is into scalp care and runs a trichology chain, and Nutri Synapzz Therapeutix, which is into nutraceuticals.
In October last year, Fulcrum marked its first exit from a portfolio company by selling stake in a small property developer, Casa Grande, to the management and made 10.2x returns over an eight-year holding period.
Other portfolio companies include Curatio Healthcare (a pharma company focused on dermatological formulations), SwaaS Systems (offering sales force automation solution for the pharma sector) and CMYK Health Boutique (runs The Four Fountain Spa chain).
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)
