India’s GCC (global capability centre) narrative is evolving fast. Beyond scale and cost efficiency, a new cohort of global companies is using India to build core product IP, data platforms, AI infrastructure, and semiconductor design capabilities.
Calling 2025 a defining moment for India’s GCC ecosystem, Piyush Kedia, Co-founder and CEO of SME-focused workforce solutions company InCommon, says the year firmly dismantled the long-standing perception of India as merely a back-office destination. As a result, India has seen a growing influx of Nano GCCs.
Nano GCCs are capability-rich, leadership-heavy hubs, typically housing 50–150 skilled experts working in advanced domains.
“The most interesting work we see now is product, data, and AI sitting inside India pods that own real outcomes—not just volume,” he tells AIM.
Kedia notes that this shift has been reinforced by changes in the global operating environment. Policy uncertainty in the US, including tighter visa proposals such as H-1B changes and the Halting International Relocation of Employees Act, has altered how companies think about talent and location strategy.
Here’s a closer look at who they are and what they are building.
1. OutSystems
HQ: Boston, US (originated from Lisbon, Protugal)
Industry: Low-code enterprise application development
India presence: 103 employees
Software development lifecycle-focused OutSystems is building core product engineering capability in India for its low-code platform. The India team works on platform features, cloud delivery, integrations, and release engineering, supporting the company’s transition from app development tools to full-scale enterprise application delivery.
2. Cognite
HQ: Oslo, Norway
Industry: Industrial data platforms and enterprise analytics
India presence: 116 employees
SaaS company Cognite’s India centre supports product engineering and delivery for its industrial data foundation platform. The focus is on connectors, deployments, and customer implementations that unify operational data across heavy industries like energy and manufacturing.
3. Clari
HQ: Sunnyvale, US
Industry: Revenue operations and sales forecasting
India presence: 138 employees
Revenue orchestration platform Clari is using India to scale its core platform and data engineering, including CRM integrations and applied analytics. The team works on ML-driven forecasting, pipeline health, and revenue intelligence for mid-market and enterprise sales organisations.
4. WEKA
HQ: San Jose, US (with roots in Tel Aviv, Israel)
Industry: High-performance data storage for AI
India presence: 50 employees
Data technology company WEKA’s India team focuses on deep engineering for AI data infrastructure, working on performance optimisation, storage platform features, and testing for GPU-intensive AI and analytics workloads.
5. Instabase
HQ: San Francisco, US
Industry: Enterprise automation and document AI
India presence: 69 employees
Fintech enabler Instabase is building its platform and AI engineering capabilities in India for document automation. Teams work on data extraction, workflow orchestration, and integrations for large enterprises in finance, insurance, and other document-heavy sectors.
6. SeekOut
HQ: Bellevue, US
Industry: Recruiting and HR technology
India presence: 53 employees
Agentic AI recruiting platform SeekOut’s India centre supports product engineering and ML development for candidate search, ranking, and matching. The focus extends to enterprise workflows, integrations, and platform reliability at scale.
7. Alkira
HQ: San Jose, US
Industry: Cloud networking and network-as-a-service
India presence: 51 employees
Network infrastructure-as-a-service platform Alkira is building core network software engineering capabilities in India, including data plane and packet-forwarding work. The team also supports platform reliability and integrations across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
8. Mbanq
HQ: Miami, US
Industry: Fintech infrastructure and BaaS
India presence: 42 employees
Fintech Mbanq’s India operations focus on platform engineering and product delivery for its banking-as-a-service stack, covering APIs, integrations, and regulated core banking infrastructure for fintechs and financial institutions.
9. Graphcore
HQ: Bristol, UK
Industry: AI accelerator chips
India presence: 26 employees (early stage)
Following its acquisition by SoftBank Group, semiconductor company Graphcore is setting up an R&D-heavy India centre focused on chip architecture, design verification, and supporting software for next-generation AI accelerators, with plans to scale hiring in Bengaluru.
10. Adyen
HQ: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Industry: Payments and payment processing
India presence: 133 employees
Fintech Adyen’s Bengaluru tech hub is building payment product engineering capabilities, including local payment method integrations, transaction optimisation, and platform development supporting global enterprise merchants.
11. SiFive
HQ: San Mateo, US
Industry: Semiconductor IP and RISC-V CPU design
India presence: 128 employees
Fabless semiconductor company SiFive’s India centre is a core chip design and verification hub, working on RISC-V CPU cores, verification, and related engineering. The team plays a critical role in SiFive’s global IP development roadmap.
12. Orbia
HQ: Mexico City, Mexico
Industry: Manufacturing
India presence: 50 employees
Identity modernisation is one of the major focus areas, with a significant portion of the speciality chemicals solutions company Orbia’s identity team based in India. The team is actively exploring agentic AI and reassessing legacy IAM (identity and access management) stacks.
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