SoftPlus eyes Nasdaq listing, acquisitions
SoftPlus website
softplus.com
By Satya Prakash Singh
Business Times Bureau
MUMBAI: Another Indo-American infotech venture is on a roll. Cupertino-based SoftPlus Inc, a five-year-old enterprise customer management solutions company is eyeing the Nasdaq Stock Exchange while working simultaneously at raising venture funds and acquiring companies.
Floated by the Indian trio, Mohan Uttarwar, Vijay Uttarwar and Vinay Despande, the $15-million enterprise expects to be listed on the Nasdaq within the next 12 months. Softplus president Uttarwar told The Times of India, "If all the fundamentals of the company are found correct, we intend to be listed on NASDAQ in another nine to 12 months time."
Its audit partner, KPMG, has been commissioned to find out the modalities and other relevant components pertaining to the public offering.
On a parallell track, SoftPlus is raising $12 million through venture capital funding which will be pumped into India where it is expanding the software development base. The venture fund is also expected to help the company to expand into the Asia-Pacific region.
SoftPlus is also eyeing acquiring one or two small but focused software solutions companies. Mr Uttarwar said, "We are open to both Indian and European companies who can bring some unique value proposition to the table."
SoftPlus, a provider of integration and customer management solutions for the telecommunications industry, sources products from its India development centre based in Mumbai. Says Mr Vijay Uttarwar, managing director, SoftPlus India, "Instead of importing people to the US, we have exported the infrastructure for products development and the Silicon Valley culture." SoftPlus intends to have a workforce of 150 professionals by the end of this year.
Catering to the customer relationship management of the telecommunication companies, the Mumbai development centre has developed products like FASTTrack, TelcoCare, ConnectEX. Targeted at the supervisor/manager, CallEx, a call centre workforce management software, allows for complete control, monitoring and tracking of the agents. FASTTrack, the Web application business unit of SoftPlus, has created a middleware framework especially for financial institutions to help them deliver online trading solutions faster.
North America and Europe are the key business areas for SoftPlus which comprise around 70 per cent of its total turnover. Now, it has set its eyes on the Asia-Pacific market which, it feels, holds huge potential. According to SoftPlus, Mumbai will be the support centre for the Asia-Pacific region. With all its business plans in place, SoftPlus has set a target of achieving a turnover of $50 million by the year 2000. |
