Fulcrum Digital to look for acquisitions in India to grow business

The New Jersey, US-headquartered firm has a development centre in Pune, which is its biggest location globally.

Rajesh Sinha, chairman of Fulcrum Digital, said that the company would look for opportunities primarily in and around Pune to enable easier integration with its existing operations. Fulcrum would look at target companies, which could either add to its existing workforce in the region, bring in a set of complementary skills and offerings or increase its customer base within selected areas.

“We are looking at opportunities in the $25-40 million range and within India,” Sinha said.

India is the biggest location for the company, accounting for almost 900 of its overall workforce of 1,200 employees at present.

“We will grow from 1,200 to 2,400 within the next two years. We are adding about 100 employees every three months,” said Sinha. He had earlier said that the company would grow to $100 million in revenues by 2022-23, which he said it was on track to achieve.

While North America, the UK and the Nordics are the main markets for the company, India has been growing exponentially, he said. “Any platform we launch in India will give us scale, and that’s going to help us with our growth model as well as capitalising on the Indian market as well,” said Sinha.

At present, 50% of the business comes from the platforms that it licences, and the balance from platforms that it builds for companies in a service model. At present, India comprises 10-12% of its global revenues, and Sinha said that this was likely to increase in the coming years. The company had adopted a platform-led approach a few years ago, which helped it grow during the pandemic.

“The platform had matured and we could capitalise on that during the pandemic. So, instead of hiring more people, we could start to roll out more platforms faster,” Sinha said.

Customers, he said, were no longer willing to wait for months on end till solutions were created and delivered. “If you don’t have the capability to deliver with the speed that they want, then they will go to somebody else,” said Sinha. Here, having a core platform has helped as it could customise and roll out solutions in a shorter period of time than it would have taken to create new ones.

Fulcrum has identified key verticals for growth, including payments, insurance, food and manufacturing, logistics and healthcare. Over the past year, it has gone deeper in terms of how it works with customers in these areas, working on creating more customised solutions for them using artificial intelligence and data science based tools. For instance, in the food business, the focus shifted to minimising contact and automating processes, which it did using QR codes and building upon its existing platform. Fulcrum also expanded its existing platform to cater to hospitals and universities.