Firstsource buys stake in analytics newbie Nanobi

Sanjiv Goenka-led BPM player Firstsource Solutions has picked up a strategic minority stake in Bangalore-based Nanobi Data and Analytics, reflecting the growing appetite among Indian IT and BPM (business process management) companies for local startups offering differentiated propositions in the technology space. The two-year-old startup founded by four former iFlex top executives offers analytics-as-a-service to enterprises on a cloud-based pay-as-you-use subscription model to improve operational efficiency and drive revenues. IT industry body Nasscom expects analytics to emerge as the second biggest BPM (business process management) segment by 2016, dislodging finance & accounting from that spot. Several BPM companies are witnessing their fastest growth in the analytics segment. Nanobi has created an app store called Analytics Tree that has a predefined analytics app to suit the requirements of small and medium businesses. It enables them to plug in their data sources using Nanobi's platform to consume analytics-as-a-service. "We are expanding our sales and marketing force. Firstsource is looking to set up its analytics centre and Nanobi will power the centre with its analytics platform," said Mahesh Ramakrishnan, CEO of Nanobi. Global investment banking firm O3 Capital was the advi sor to the transaction. The Analytics Tree offers SMBs pre-packaged, real-time analytics that cost between Rs 1,000 and Rs 20,000 a month. Nanobi has 26 customers and is planning to expand to international markets next year. Indian IT majors are scaling up their social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) play. These are the fastest growing segments of the IT market today, and serve also to grow revenues without increasing headcount in the same proportion. Recently, Wipro picked up a 12.5% stake in New Jerseybased big data and predictive analytics firm Opera Solutions, and Pegasystems, a software company led by billionaire tech entrepreneur and former chess champion Alan Trefler, bought MeshLabs' text analytics software to gather unstructured social media data and decode it into actionable business insights for its clients.