AWS Marketplace Debuts in India: A UPI-Style Revolution for Enterprise

AWS is bringing its Marketplace to India, offering a UPI-like experience for enterprise software procurement. This means businesses can discover, buy, and deploy software solutions from AWS partners with transactions in Indian rupees (INR). Payment options will include net banking, credit cards, and UPI, making it more accessible for Indian enterprises.

AWS India and South Asia President Sandeep Dutta called this a "UPI moment for enterprise software procurement", highlighting its potential to streamline digital transactions. AWS also reaffirmed its $16.4 billion investment in India by 2030 to support digital transformation.

This could be a game-changer for India's growing digital economy.

The launch of AWS Marketplace in India could significantly reshape enterprise software procurement. Here’s how:

• Simplified Access to Software: Businesses can now discover, buy, and deploy software solutions more efficiently, reducing procurement complexities. 
• Localized Transactions: Payments in Indian rupees (INR) with options like UPI, net banking, and credit cards make transactions smoother for Indian enterprises.
• Boost for Indian SaaS Providers: Indian software vendors can reach a wider audience through AWS Marketplace, enhancing their visibility and revenue potential.
• Accelerated Digital Transformation: AWS’s $16.4 billion investment in India by 2030 aims to fuel digital growth, supporting businesses in adopting cloud-based solutions.
• Security & Compliance Benefits: Enterprises can leverage AWS’s security infrastructure, ensuring compliance with Indian regulations while accessing global software solutions.

This could be a game-changer for India’s digital economy, making software procurement as seamless as UPI transactions.

Singapore's Everstone Acquires Delhi-based Wingify for ~ $200 Mn

Everstone Capital, a private equity firm headquartered in Singapore, has acquired a majority stake in Wingify, an Indian SaaS company, for approximately $200 million, reported TechCrunch.com

Wingify, founded by Paras Chopra and Sparsh Gupta in 2010, is known for its flagship product, Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), which helps businesses improve their online conversion rates through A/B testing and customer experience optimization.

This acquisition marks a significant milestone for Wingify, which has grown from a two-person startup into a profitable global software provider with over 6,000 clients across 90 countries.

Paras Chopra, owned 71% of the company before the acquisition. He will retain a minority stake and continue to be involved as a board member.

Sparsh Gupta, Sparsh Gupta, who joined Wingify as CEO in 2018, will continue as CEO, while Paras Chopra will retain a minority stake and remain on the board.

Wingify's annualized revenue runrate recently touched $50 million, and its operating scale surged by 30.8% in the fiscal year 2024. Wingify has a global market presence, with clients in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands.

This acquisition highlights Everstone's growing focus on India's technology sector, particularly profitable, bootstrapped companies with global reach. It also underscores the increasing appeal of Indian SaaS firms to global investors.

Intel and DigitalBridge Form An Independent Company 'Articul8 AI' To Offer Full-Stack Generative AI Software to Enterprises

DigitalBridge Ventures is the lead investor of Articul8

Arun Subramaniyan, formerly VP and GM in Intel’s Data Center and AI Group To Lead Articul8. 

Fin Capital, Mindset Ventures, Communitas Capital, GiantLeap Capital, GS Futures and Zain Group, has taken an equity stake in Articul8.

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (NYSE: DBRG; “DigitalBridge”), a  global digital infrastructure investment firm, have together announced the formation of Articul8 AI, Inc. (Articul8), an independent company offering enterprise customers a full-stack, vertically-optimized and secure generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) software platform. The platform delivers AI capabilities that keep customer data, training and inference within the enterprise security perimeter. The platform also provides customers the choice of cloud, on-prem or hybrid deployment.

Articul8 was created with intellectual property (IP) and technology developed at Intel, and the two companies will remain strategically aligned on go-to-market opportunities and collaborate on driving GenAI adoption in the enterprise. Arun Subramaniyan, formerly vice president and general manager in Intel’s Data Center and AI Group, has assumed leadership of Articul8 as its CEO.

“With its deep AI and HPC domain knowledge and enterprise-grade GenAI deployments, Articul8 is well positioned to deliver tangible business outcomes for Intel and our broader ecosystem of customers and partners. As Intel accelerates AI everywhere, we look forward to our continued collaboration with Articul8," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO.

DigitalBridge Ventures, the venture initiative of DigitalBridge, served as lead investor of Articul8. In addition, Intel, along with a syndicate of established venture investors, including Fin Capital, Mindset Ventures, Communitas Capital, GiantLeap Capital, GS Futures and Zain Group, has taken an equity stake in the company.

“Every global enterprise today is challenged to integrate GenAI capabilities into their workflows. Articul8 has built a scalable and easy-to-deploy GenAI software platform that is already enabling enterprises to unlock value from their proprietary data. We see GenAI as a pivotal force driving digital infrastructure, and we are pleased to collaborate with Intel to support Articul8’s growth,” said Marc Ganzi, DigitalBridge CEO.

Articul8 offers a turnkey GenAI software platform that delivers speed, security and cost-efficiency to help large enterprise customers operationalize and scale AI. The platform was launched and optimized on Intel hardware architectures, including Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and Intel® Gaudi® accelerators, but will support a range of hybrid infrastructure alternatives. Following the technology’s early deployment at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the team has scaled the platform to enterprise customers in industry segments requiring high levels of security and specialized domain knowledge, including financial services, aerospace, semiconductors and telecommunications.

“GenAI is at the forefront of our clients’ business strategy and needs. Our collaboration began nearly two years ago while the venture was still in the incubation stage at Intel. Since then, we have deployed Articul8 products for multiple clients seeking production-ready platforms with rapid time to market,” said Rich Lesser, global chair of BCG.

As an independent company supported by industry investment, Articul8 will be able to accelerate its go-to-market strategy and scale its product offerings for the broader GenAI ecosystem.

For more information about Articul8, visit www.articul8.ai.

About DigitalBridge

DigitalBridge (NYSE: DBRG) is a leading global alternative asset manager dedicated to investing in digital infrastructure. With a heritage of over 25 years investing in and operating businesses across the digital ecosystem, including cell towers, data centers, fiber, small cells, and edge infrastructure, the DigitalBridge team manages $75 billion of infrastructure assets on behalf of its limited partners and shareholders. Headquartered in Boca Raton, DigitalBridge has key offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Luxembourg, and Singapore. For more information, visit: www.digitalbridge.com.

About Articul8

Articul8 is a generative AI (GenAI) enterprise software company focused on helping organizations solve the world’s toughest problems. Articul8’s full-stack, vertically-optimized GenAI software platform enables companies to build, deploy and manage enterprise-grade, secure GenAI applications rapidly and cost-effectively. Articul8's proprietary GenAI technologies are infrastructure and hardware-agnostic, and deliver lasting business value by transforming customer data into actionable insights. Our team of industry veterans and AI experts have a heritage of successfully operationalizing and deploying AI at scale across a variety of mission-critical industries. For more information, please visit www.articul8.ai.

3i Infotech Focuses its Anti-Money Laundering Solution 'AMLOCK' for the US Market

 3i Infotech Limited , a global Information Technology company, showcased its advanced Financial Crime Detection and Management Solution AMLOCK at the recently concluded ACAMS 7th Annual AML Risk Management Conference in New York. AMLOCK enables banks and financial institutions to proactively detect and manage potential money laundering activities. AMLOCK is an established global anti-money laundering (AML) Solution with over 100 installations across 35 countries. 

AMLOCK is a purpose-built, end-to-end solution designed to stem the flow of illicit funds and meet the compliance requirements of increasing regulatory oversight. It offers comprehensive tools to efficiently manage customer due diligence, enhance compliance processes and seamlessly identify, assess customer risk. 

Speaking on their AML offerings, Krish Narayanaswami, Global Business Head – Banking, 3i Infotech said, “We are proud to feature AMLOCK, our globally acclaimed & end-to-end financial crime detection and management solution at the ACAMS conference marking our foray into the US market”.

Ravikanth Sama, Global Head – AML Practice, 3i Infotech said “AMLOCK leverages the latest technologies, smart graphical analytics and uses AI/ML models. It enables banks, insurance companies, security firms, non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) and mobile wallet users to easily identify & monitor suspicious activity at both the transaction & customer levels.”

The key features of the AMLOCK include Know Your Customer (KYC) / Sanctions Screening, Customer Risk Rating, Transaction Monitoring, False Positive Manager, Case Management and Reporting & Analytics. It supports both on-premise and cloud-based deployment models. The offerings of the AMLOCK Suite include AMLOCK FCDMS, Financial Crime Detection and Management Solution, which provides end-to-end financial crime management for large enterprises; AMLOCK Lite, which caters to AML requirement of small and medium institutions; and AMLOCK Analytics that brings the latest dimension of Analytics & AI to uncover hidden AML patterns / risks.

About 3i Infotech

3i Infotech provides comprehensive IP based software solutions & IT services, transforming businesses across Banking, Financial Services, Insurance and Enterprises. Its product offerings include Kastle Universal Banking Suite, AMLOCK Financial Crime Detection & Management Solution, Premia® Core Insurance Solution, MFund Asset Management Solution and Orion Enterprise Resource Planning Solution. A robust capability in the services domain is evident through consulting services, business optimization services and an extensive expertise in mobility, data analytics, big data, testing and application development services, all of which come under the umbrella brand – Altiray. With a strong base of over 1200 customers and a global footprint across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, 3i Infotech has over 5000 employees located in 24 offices. 

India's App Software Spending To Outpace China, Grow 20% This Year

India is set to outpace China in enterprise application software spending growth with a 19.8% rise this year, compared with 18.9% in China, says a report by Gartner.

However, it is to be noted that in absolute terms the total spending in India is projected to reach $2.5 billion, while that of China is expected to be higher at $5.1 billion, said the Gartner report.

The report further said that, India has a higher percentage of companies in all categories who want to increase spending across all enterprise applications.

Enterprise content management (ECM), business intelligence (BI), customer relationship management (CRM) and open source (enterprise edition) were the most popular in India, while open source, ECM and CRM were the most popular in China.

In India, increased software spending is being strongly influenced by overarching digital transformation, followed by mobile and artificial intelligence (AI). In China, cloud/SaaS offerings lead as the top influencer (chosen by 63 percent of respondents), followed by Internet of Things and mobile.

IoT is particularly significant in China due to the large manufacturing base, and the fact that "smart manufacturing" is an official initiative in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan. However, adoption of emerging initiatives such as IoT, AI and digital transformation will largely vary. Some end-user organizations are still piloting, experimenting with and trialing their own resources in order to implement these initiatives.

"China's and India's enterprise application software spending has grown at double-digit rates historically, and they will continue to be hot spots," said Keith Guttridge, research director, Garner.

"Despite moderate economic growth, technology and service providers (TSPs) should craft a go-to-market strategy that assumes that China and India will continue to be fast-growth markets in the region and the world," said Mr. Guttridge. "TSPs can differentiate their offerings by providing 'hand-holding' mini-consultations for key initiatives, such as IoT (especially in China), AI and digital transformation (especially in India). They can also deliver use-case scenarios that demonstrate the value of products and services to these emerging technologies."

According to Statista, the revenue of the Indian software market reached around US$5.2 billion in 2016. Until 2018, it is expected to increase to nearly 5.8 billion U.S. dollars of annual revenue. Among the global leaders of the enterprise software market are Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM.

Speaking about Startups in enterprise software sector, enterprise software start-ups are fast becoming the favourites of investors. Take Freshdesk, one of India’s most valuable enterprise start-ups, which makes customer management software. Started in 2010, it has so far raised over $90 million in venture funding from the likes of Tiger Global, Google Capital and Accel Partners.

Between January and April 2016, there were 44 investments in enterprise or business-to-business (B2B) startups, as against 71 deals in the same period of year 2017, according to IndianWeb2 calculations based on data available on the website Trak.in.

India's App Software Spending To Outpace China, Grow 20% This Year

India is set to outpace China in enterprise application software spending growth with a 19.8% rise this year, compared with 18.9% in China, says a report by Gartner.

However, it is to be noted that in absolute terms the total spending in India is projected to reach $2.5 billion, while that of China is expected to be higher at $5.1 billion, said the Gartner report.

The report further said that, India has a higher percentage of companies in all categories who want to increase spending across all enterprise applications.

Enterprise content management (ECM), business intelligence (BI), customer relationship management (CRM) and open source (enterprise edition) were the most popular in India, while open source, ECM and CRM were the most popular in China.

In India, increased software spending is being strongly influenced by overarching digital transformation, followed by mobile and artificial intelligence (AI). In China, cloud/SaaS offerings lead as the top influencer (chosen by 63 percent of respondents), followed by Internet of Things and mobile.

IoT is particularly significant in China due to the large manufacturing base, and the fact that "smart manufacturing" is an official initiative in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan. However, adoption of emerging initiatives such as IoT, AI and digital transformation will largely vary. Some end-user organizations are still piloting, experimenting with and trialing their own resources in order to implement these initiatives.

"China's and India's enterprise application software spending has grown at double-digit rates historically, and they will continue to be hot spots," said Keith Guttridge, research director, Garner.

"Despite moderate economic growth, technology and service providers (TSPs) should craft a go-to-market strategy that assumes that China and India will continue to be fast-growth markets in the region and the world," said Mr. Guttridge. "TSPs can differentiate their offerings by providing 'hand-holding' mini-consultations for key initiatives, such as IoT (especially in China), AI and digital transformation (especially in India). They can also deliver use-case scenarios that demonstrate the value of products and services to these emerging technologies."

According to Statista, the revenue of the Indian software market reached around US$5.2 billion in 2016. Until 2018, it is expected to increase to nearly 5.8 billion U.S. dollars of annual revenue. Among the global leaders of the enterprise software market are Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM.

Speaking about Startups in enterprise software sector, enterprise software start-ups are fast becoming the favourites of investors. Take Freshdesk, one of India’s most valuable enterprise start-ups, which makes customer management software. Started in 2010, it has so far raised over $90 million in venture funding from the likes of Tiger Global, Google Capital and Accel Partners.

Between January and April 2016, there were 44 investments in enterprise or business-to-business (B2B) startups, as against 71 deals in the same period of year 2017, according to IndianWeb2 calculations based on data available on the website Trak.in.