Kedaara acquires majority stake in GS Lab, a leader in digital product engineering services

NASSCOM expects India’s engineering R&D sector to grow at a CAGR of 13%

to US$ 65bn by 2025

by Suman Gupta

Pune, 10^th November 2021: Great Software Laboratory Private Limited (“GS Lab”), a leader in digital product engineering services, today announced the acquisition of a significant majority stake in the company by Kedaara, a leading private equity firm. GS Lab has grown at a stellar rate of 20%+ over the last five years.Investment from Kedaara will enable GS Lab to:

• Accelerate business growth by leveraging global relationships of Kedaara and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (“CD&R”), a global private equity firm and JV partner of Kedaara,

• Deliver digital product engineering services to a wider pool of customers across Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), enterprises, and digital-native companies globally, and

• Continue to focus on leading-edge technologies to meet the digital needs of customers and create an enriching work environment for all employees.

“Over the past 18 years, we have scaled GS Lab into a 1600+ person innovation-led organization,” said Shridhar Shukla and Sunil Gaitonde, the co-founders of GS Lab. “The investment by Kedaara will enable us to further build on our strengths and take advantage of the growing need for innovative software and digital solutions across industries globally and in India, by leveraging Kedaara and CD&R’s extensive network and relationships.”

Sunish Sharma, Co-CEO & Managing Partner of Kedaara, and Parin Mehta, Managing Director of Kedaara, said, “Digital transformation is one of the key investment themes for us, and we are very excited to partner with the GS Lab team to support their continued development of outstanding digital software products for their clients worldwide. Shridhar, Sunil, Atul and the senior leadership team have truly built a strong platform at GS Lab with exceptional product engineering capabilities, focus on innovation and partnerships with world-class clients.”

Digital product engineering services is a high-growth sector globally. According to NASSCOM[1], India’s engineering R&D sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13% to US$ 65bn by 2025, up from US$ 31bn in 2019. This growth is being fueled by rapidly accelerating digitalization across all industry verticals. India is uniquely positioned to tap into this opportunity and support global MNCs with their digital transformation efforts, given a strong focus on innovation, a large and diverse talent pool, and the ability to provide differentiated service delivery. GS Lab is at the forefront of this digital transformation, functioning as the innovation engine for ISVs, digital-native startups, and enterprises globally.

Pramod Bhasin, Operating Partner, Kedaara, and former President and CEO, Genpact, said, “It is quite clear that digital is becoming the core differentiator for businesses across the board globally. With a strong product DNA and IP-led culture, GS Lab is very well positioned to be one of the premier digital engineering service providers based out of India.”

GS Lab works through the entire software development cycle, from ideation through design, development, execution, deployment, and support. Its team of engineers and product architects offer cutting-edge capabilities in cloud, identity management, security, IoT, AI/ML and data sciences to its clients across sectors. The company differentiates itself through its strong innovation-led R&D culture with an extensive set of IP-driven in-house accelerators.

“We are very pleased to partner with Kedaara for continuing GS Lab’s growth journey,” said Atul Narkhede, the CEO of GS Lab. “We have built a culture of technological innovation and client centricity. Kedaara has significant experience in scaling businesses while retaining the same entrepreneurial ethos and are an ideal partner for the organization’s next phase of growth.”

DC Advisory acted as the sole financial advisor to GS Lab on the transaction.

About Kedaara:Kedaara is an operationally oriented private equity firm pursuing control and minority investment opportunities in India. It currently advises / manages over ~US$ 3.9 billion through investments in several market leading businesses across a variety of sectors including consumer, financial services, pharma/healthcare, technology / business services and industrials. Kedaara’s operating partner model comprising former CEOs with proven track records of building market leading businesses that enables businesses to realize their full potential. Since its inception, Kedaara has remained singularly dedicated to its stated strategy of focusing on investments built through trust-based relationships with best-in-class entrepreneurs and management teams across secular fast growing end markets. Kedaara was co-founded by Manish Kejriwal, Sunish Sharma and Nishant Sharma and combines the strengths of a well-networked, highly experienced local investing and operating team, with the experience of their strategic partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a global private equity firm whose investment model blends financial skills with operating expertise.

For further information about Kedaara, please visit: https://kedaara.com

About Great Software Laboratory Private Limited

GS Lab is a provider of digital product engineering services, helping ISVs and enterprises build, deploy and manage their digital products. Over 18 years, GS Lab has engineered 350+ software and digital products for its customers. Their innovation-led culture and client-centric engagement model helps GS Lab craft solutions for its clients in a nimble and agile manner. Headquartered in Pune, GS Lab has engineering centers across India, the USA and the UK, and services clients across technology, telecom, communications, networking, healthcare, financial services, real estate, and various other industries. The company works with ISVs and enterprises, both large market-leading organizations as well as emerging innovators, to enable them to develop and manage new digital products.

For further information about GS Lab, please visit: https://www.gslab.com/