Happiest Minds to double headcount, acquire firm

Bengaluru-based IT firm Happiest Minds Technologies will double its headcount to 4,000-4,500 in the next two years. The company, with a revenue run rate of $64 million (annual projection of revenues based on the average current monthly revenues) has 2,000 employees.

“This employee number will be sufficient for us till we reach $70 million. We would need another 2,000-2,500 to get us to $150 million in the next two-and-a-half years,” Ashok Soota, Executive Chairman of Happiest Minds, told BusinessLine .

The founding-Chairman and Managing Director of MindTree, which he left in 2011, Soota co-founded Happiest Minds after successfully leading the former to an IPO.

Happiest Minds had indicated earlier that it would go in for a public issue seven years after its inception.

The listing will happen on Indian bourses. “We will hit the $150-million target in another two-and-a-half years as we turn seven. We will go for an IPO then as indicated earlier. We are not looking at listing abroad. Indian markets have evolved and we will be listing here,” he said.

The company is planning an acquisition this financial year. “We might go for two acquisitions with a ticket size of $10-12 million each or one with a size of $25 million. We are on the lookout for firms in specific technology segments, such as infrastructure, digital transformation and product engineering,” he said.

The company, however, is not planning to raise funds for the proposed acquisition. “We have enough funds from the first round of fundraising (that got in about $55 million). I don’t see any requirement (for funds) now. In case, the target firm is so attractive and requires more money, we might consider (raising funds),” he said.

The firm, which last month came out with a new tagline, The Mindful IT Company, to indicate its approach to its employees, customers and community, turned profitable last year.

The US contributed 70 per cent and European markets 20 per cent to the company’s revenue, with the rest coming from India. “We have recently launched operations in Australia and the Middle-East. We got two orders in Australia and are seeing good traction in the Middle-East. We are going to focus on Continental Europe, particularly Germany. Europe has the potential to contribute 25 per cent,” he said.

Though the first quarter of this year saw growth of 14 per cent (quarter on quarter), the second quarter was flattish. “The remaining two quarters should be good,” he added.

Soota has just completed a book, entitled Entrepreneurship Simplified . Co-authored with SR Gopalan, the book tells aspiring entrepreneurs how to transform an idea into a successful enterprise and to successfully lead it to an Initial Public Offering.

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