True North, one of India’s oldest private equity (PE) firms, has signed a definitive agreement to sell its entire stake in Actify Data Labs Pvt Ltd, a greenfield data-driven analytics company, to global omnichannel survey platform Voxco.
Funding for the acquisition comes from Pivoton Capital, a current syndicate of Canadian and US PE investors, the company said in a statement on Tuesday, without disclosing any further financial details of the deal. True North had incubated Actify Labs in 2018 from its fifth fund with a $10 million commitment. Its fifth fund launched in 2014 with a corpus of $700 million. The PE, founded in 1999, has launched six funds till date, with a total corpus of $2.9 billion.
Actify Data Labs is an augmented intelligence company that provides data science and data engineering capabilities, and has enabled enterprises to leverage data using its technology lab and analytics platform ‘ADAPTify.’ The platform will enable Voxco in enhancing its experience management offering, the company said, adding that the platform’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities will help companies to enhance their revenue.
“AI is revolutionising the experience management landscape. Data is the heart of AI, and the fuel to drive new-age omnichannel experience management platforms. We are thrilled to be part of a global leader like Voxco, where our technology will play an integral role in reimagining the research technology, survey and experience management platform of the future,” said Hindol Basu, Chief Executive Officer, Actify Data Labs.
Voxco is a global provider in omnichannel cloud and on-premises enterprise feedback management solutions. The company provides market research organisations, government and government agencies, universities, and global corporations with a platform to collect data anytime and anywhere via online and mobile surveys, over-the-phone interviews, or face-to-face offline surveys.
“Our mission at Voxco is to transform the actionable insights industry and remove the technological barriers for professionals to enable a seamless research technology experience. Combining forces with Actify will create a perfect mix of capabilities to fuel the future of experiences for companies. This will enhance our experience management offerings globally,” said Sumit Aneja, Chief Executive Officer, Voxco.
True North, meanwhile, has been exiting a few firms of late. In September, the PE firm had sold RDC Concrete to Tiger Global Management-backed marketplace for construction materials Infra.Market. The PE also partly sold its pharmaceuticals-focused platform Integrace Pvt Ltd stake to Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings in October. In that same month, VCCircle had reported that Fedbank Financial Services Ltd (Fedfina), a retail-focused non-bank lender set up by Federal Bank Ltd, in which True North holds a 26% stake, was eyeing for an initial public offering.
“They started with espousing True North's 3A (Analytics, Algorithms and AI) vision in investee companies and have grown to a company that has become a significant partner for many India-based data-driven organisations today. In the next phase of their journey with Groupe Voxco, Actify will pave the way to becoming a major player in the global marketplace for data-driven decision-making," said Anand Narayan, Chief Digital Officer, True North.
In an exclusive interview with VCCircle, True North’s partner, Ashish Bhargava had said that the PE was eyeing to back digital-first companies by allocating more money for such firms in its seventh fund that is plans to launch early 2022.
