Affirma Capital, a private equity firm spun out of Standard Chartered Private Equity earlier this year, has invested in information technology company Prodapt Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
While the London-based Affirma did not disclose the size of the investment in Prodapt, Mint reported that the firm has acquired a significant minority stake for around $75 million (approximately Rs 537.54 crore at current exchange rates).
Mumbai-based Avendus Capital was the adviser to Prodapt on the transaction.
Udai Dhawan, co-founder and India head at Affirma Capital, said the company is confident about their investment considering Prodapt’s unique positioning in providing solutions to digital services providers.
“What impressed us about Prodapt was the consistent endorsement by Prodapt’s global clients of its domain knowledge, flexibility and a partner mindset,” said Abhi Dhall, executive director at Affirma Capital.
The Chennai-based Prodapt, which was founded in 1999, provides its solutions to digital services providers such as telecommunications and cable companies. The company claims to help its clients transform their IT, products, operations and networks to meet their strategic objectives.
Its services include leveraging frontier technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence and machine learning and software-defined networking/network function virtualisation (SDN-NFV).
The company also provides end-to-end IT and software architecture consulting, application development, systems integration, testing, maintenance and support.
Affirma Capital
The firm has assets under management worth $3.6 billion. In the statement, Affirma said the investment in Prodapt is its fourth investment in India in the 12 months.
StanChart spun out its PE portfolio in December last year as part of a transaction where London-based asset manager Intermediate Capital Group Plc (ICG) acquired the assets for around $1 billion.
As part of the management buyout, ICG Strategic Equity had made available to Affirma a pool of about $400-$500 million for new deals and follow-on investments in the acquired portfolio.
In July, VCCircle reported that Affirma had invested around $40-45 million (around Rs 275-309 crore) in the Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh-based Tirupati Medicare Ltd. At the time, a person aware of the developments told VCCircle that Tirupati planned to use the funds on research and development activities as well as meet its capital expenditure and working capital requirements.
In March, Affirma was part of a Rs 910 crore (around $130 million) investment round in non-banking financial company Northern Arc Capital Ltd IIFL Special Opportunities Fund and Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) -- both existing investors in the company participated in that round.
The firm says it has also invested around $50 million in travel-technology company Travel Boutique Online.