Firstsource invests in cloud-based data analytics startup Nanobi

Mumbai-based Business Process Management (BPM) firm Firstsource Solutions Ltd has picked a minority equity stake in Bangalore-based data analytics startup Nanobi Data & Analytics Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

"We cannot disclose the deal size right now as Firstsource is a listed company," Nanobi's founder and CEO Mahesh Ramakrishnan told Techcircle.in. "We are planning to use the money to build sales and marketing teams as well as to strengthen our engineering team," he added.

Ramakrishnan said that Firstsource is already into analytics space and this synergy will enable it to offer services around Nanobi's platform. Nanobi is also looking to leverage Firstsource's global reach.

Nanobi was founded in 2012 by a group of five - Ramakrishnan, Sumant Sarkar, CV Vinod, S Jayaprakash and Abhishek Purohit. It provides businesses with products and analytic solutions to help them better manage their business and customers. A cloud-based Business Intelligence platform, Nanobi also lets customers build analytic applications for use and consumption by consumers of information.

At present, the startup serves 26 clients, majority of whom are located in India.

Firstsource provides BPM and BPO solutions to enterprise across telecommunications & media, BFSI and healthcare & publishing industries. The firm claims that it currently serves over 100 global clients from multiple delivery centres and in various languages. A multinational company, Firstsource has over 30,000 employees in India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the US, Ireland and the UK.

The Indian analytics space has seen a lot of action, of late. Early this week, Techcircle.in exclusively reported that Chennai- and Singapore-based analytics startup Crayon Data in advanced talks to raise $2 million in additional funding from its existing investors, including Singapore-based Jungle Ventures and Spring Seed Capital. Recently, analytics company Manthan Software Services raised about $3 million from Fidelity Growth Partners and Norwest Venture Partners.

Early last month, Mumbai-based pure-play analytics provider Fractal Analytics raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Canadian loyalty management firm Aimia. India- and US-based Mu Sigma Inc., one of the leading Big Data analytics companies in the world, is in talks with a group of investors to raise upwards of $200 million in fresh funding, which could value the company more than Flipkart.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)