Netcore is a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, startup that specializes in offering customer communication and engagement solutions to businesses is readying for an IPO, after an $100M acquisition of UNBXD this month.
Rajesh Jain, India’s internet industry pioneer, is all set to take his second startup Netcore Cloud Pvt. for an initial public offer within the next year, fresh after a $100 million acquisition this month.
“We’ve had initial conversations with half-a-dozen bankers and the formal process will start in the next couple of months,” Jain said over a Zoom call with bloomberg discussing the acquisition and the IPO. “We are targeting an IPO within the next nine to 12 months.”
Mumbai-headquartered Netcore is a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, startup that specializes in offering customer communication and engagement solutions to businesses. It bought about a 90% stake in San Mateo, California-based e-commerce search-personalization company Unbxd Inc.
The acquisition would strengthen Netcore’s offerings to its roster of global customers such as Pizza Hut Inc., The Body Shop Inc. and Tommy Hilfiger Corp. The deal would also boost the company’s subscription revenues to $150 million annually within the next 18 months from about $100 million now, Jain said.
Netcore is IPO-ready as it’s “a large global SaaS company out of India, very profitable and dominates India and emerging markets like Southeast Asia,” said Jain, who holds about a two-third stake in the company. The remainder is owned by employees.
Jain graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and did his Masters from Columbia University. He worked in the U.S. for two years before returning to India to become an entrepreneur. He sold his first startup, IndiaWorld Communications, in one of Asia’s largest internet deals of the dotcom era in 1995.
IndiaWorld offered news, cricket scores, Bollywood gossip and search services to India’s then-miniscule internet user base. Just before the dotcom bust, it was acquired for $115 million by what is now the Nasdaq-listed communications company Sify Technologies Ltd.
