Recruitment: Altimetrik triples its IT team in India following TPG investment

“From an engineering talent perspective, we are open to go where the engineering capabilities are and India has the largest pool of engineers,” said Raj Sundaresan, CEO of Altimetrik mint“It would be negligent if we did not utilize the talent pool here.”

This comes at a time when tech hiring is declining in India, with many IT companies and startups cutting staff or saving money, offering low salaries and raises.

“From a revenue perspective, we are talking about a tripling in the next three years. This will be very proportional to the growth of our workforce, if not even higher,” he added.

Altimetrik currently has around 5,000 engineers working in India, representing nearly 80% of the company’s global engineering workforce of around 6,200.

Sundaresan also said the company will continue to grow its teams “proportionately” in other development centers in the US, Canada, Uruguay, Mexico, Poland and Portugal, to name a few. “…a lot (of the new talent) will come from the centers in India because in all the areas related to digital business modernization and AI, the best talent is here. And we are doubling down on our investments to make sure we grow our talent,” he added.

The update on Altimetrik’s hiring plans follows the acquisition of a majority stake of around 60% in the company by TPG Capital, a US-based private equity firm, which values ​​the company at around $1.5 billion.

Given the current recruitment slowdown, Altimetrik is in need of significant manpower, says Anshuman Das, co-founder and CEO of Indian recruitment firm Careernet.

“Areas like technical support and operations are human resource intensive functions. These functions are best managed remotely from India for all locations across the world. In addition, India also offers cutting-edge research and development (R&D) and product innovation at scale, which is the core of any business. These are some of the advantages that no other country can offer or easily replicate,” he added.

Das believes that given the multilingual nature of India, it is extremely cost-effective and scalable for any company to build the largest possible workforce outside the country.

Press the growth pedal

TPG’s investment through its Asian private equity platform will accelerate Altimetrik’s efforts to achieve $1 billion in revenue over the next three years, Sundaresan said. Altimetrik last reported operating revenue of $111 million for fiscal 2022.

As the company charts its path to this milestone, it plans to continue growing in the US, the country with the highest customer base, while implementing new plans to expand into other regions. And in addition to expanding its technical team, Altimetrik has other plans in the pipeline for India.

Founded in 2012 by Indian-American entrepreneur Raj Vattikuti, Altimetrik is a pure-play digital enablement company that provides business solutions to companies and helps them transform into a digital enterprise. Sundaresan, the current chief, joined the company five years later, in 2017.

The TPG-backed company works primarily with clients in the financial services, pharmaceutical and automotive sectors, and now plans to target companies in the insurance sector.

“We already have three or four clients in this vertical, but we will expand even further in this space as it is critical for digital business enablement. Modernization is also critical because the majority of insurance clients are built on legacy platforms that hinder their ability to innovate quickly,” Sundaresan said.

Altimetrik, which has a presence in 14 countries, expects its revenue mix from the US to other regions to shift from the current 75-25 to 60-40 over the next three years. This change is expected as the company intensifies its growth efforts in the UK, Europe and APAC regions.

More about the cards

For India, Altimetrik plans to target the growing number of global centers of excellence (GCCs) as its main customer segment, in addition to its core areas of finance, pharmaceuticals and automotive.

“We have identified a huge opportunity in India with the GCCs. Many GCCs in India are doing significant work for clients headquartered elsewhere. We want to target these centers by first supporting the GCCs here and then building and nurturing relationships with their headquarters,” added Sundaresan, who visited India earlier this month. The country is reportedly currently home to over 1,580 GCCs and a talent pool of over 1.66 million.

In addition, the company plans to pursue inorganic growth through mergers and acquisitions in growth industries and regions, including India. Sundaresan’s visit to India earlier this month was, among other things, to explore possible mergers and acquisitions in the country, according to the company.

Sundaresan said that altimetry is “…open-minded and not averse to (mergers and acquisitions in India). In today’s world, it would be negligent for any company not to have a presence in India.”