Kedaara Capital Invests In EdTech K12 Techno Services

The investment will support the company’s mission of providing high-quality education and technology services to the K-12 segment

K12 Techno Services Private Limited (“K12 Techno”), a leading education and technology services provider in India, today announced an investment from Kedaara Capital, for a significant minority stake in the Company. Through this investment, Kedaara seeks to support the company's vision of providing high-quality holistic education services to students and to schools in India by leveraging technology. This investment will also provide a partial exit to Peak XV Partners (formerly known as Sequoia Capital India).

K12 Techno is a technology and education services business providing full stack education, content, and technology services to more than 900 educational institutions across the country through a combination of own brand and a curriculum and technology platform. The company’s brand, content and technology are used by over 300,000 students in the K-12 space in India. The company has grown at a revenue CAGR of ~40% over last 5 years.

Kedaara will work closely with the Company’s professional management team led by its CEO, Mr. Jai Decosta, and other existing shareholders, namely, Peak XV Partners, Navneet Education Limited and Sofina Ventures, to augment its tech-enabled offering oriented towards world-class holistic education services.

Jai Decosta, CEO, K12 Techno Services said, “We are delighted to welcome Kedaara as a valued partner for the next phase of our growth, as it symbolizes a convergence of values and aspirations, and will help us continue to deliver on our mission to make an impact in the K-12 space in India. Our philosophy is to help nurture not just scholars, but also compassionate and capable individuals ready to shape a better world. We believe the congruence of technology with learning models built for India will help scale both holistic learning as well as improve outcomes.”

Sunish Sharma, Founder and Managing Partner and Anant Gupta, Managing Director of Kedaara Capital, said, "Education is the cornerstone of any society’s progress. India has over 260 million students enrolled in the K-12 segment, that aspire for accessible, high-quality holistic education. K12 Techno has done tremendous work to help schools bridge this gap by leveraging technology and process orientation. We are excited to partner with Jai and the K12 Techno team to help them accelerate their growth and further their goal of providing world-class holistic education services across India at affordable price points.”

“As long-term shareholders and partners to Jai and team, we’ve had a ring side view of K12 Techno's journey. Over the last 10 years, they have built a strong platform and tech stack to deliver high quality services to schools and students across the country. With Kedaara coming in, we believe the company will be well-funded and strengthened in its mission to build an enduring business.” added GV Ravishankar, MD, Peak XV. 

Sunil Gala, Managing Director of Navneet Education said, “Our partnership with K12 Techno has been based on a shared commitment towards promulgating knowledge and high-quality education in India. We have had a fantastic experience working with Jai and team over the last 10+ years. We are delighted to welcome Kedaara as a partner towards realizing this vision and are confident that K12 Techno will continue to create significant value for all the stakeholders in the coming years."

About K12 Techno

Founded in 2010, K12 Techno Services Private Limited is a leading education services provider in India, offering a dynamic suite of academic support, services, and solutions to educational institutions. Upgraded teaching methodologies, blended with the effective use of technology signifies K12 Techno’s approach towards K-12 education in India. 

The company provides full-stack services to over 900 educational institutions across India, under multiple brands. The company’s brand, content and technology are used by over 300,000 students in the K-12 space.

For more information about K12 Techno, please visit www.k12technoservices.com

Kedaara Capital Invests in Oasis Fertility, an Innovator and One of the Market Leaders in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Industry

Dr Durga Rao, Co-Founder & Medical Director, Oasis Fertility

The investment aims to strengthen Oasis’ organic expansion and accelerate inorganic partnerships across India and adjacent markets to further its mission of being a research-driven, clinical excellence-oriented fertility platform

Oasis Fertility, one of India’s most clinically advanced fertility chains, today announced an investment from Kedaara Capital, a leading private equity firm in India, for a significant minority stake in the company. This is Kedaara’s second investment in the single speciality healthcare segment. With this USD 50 mn transaction and a commitment to deploy further capital for strategic acquisitions, Kedaara aims to support and fuel Oasis’ growth towards realizing its vision of becoming the most respected and leading fertility chain in India and adjacent markets. The transaction will also provide an exit to InvAscent, who invested in the company in 2016.

Founded in 2009, Oasis has scaled to a network of 26 clinics across 16 cities while doubling its revenues in the last 3 years. Oasis’ scientific and excellence-oriented culture has enabled it to bring pioneering treatments and procedures to the fertility market which is reflected in its high success rates. Further, Oasis enjoys a strong reputation for handling complex cases and delivering successful outcomes in patients with a history of unsuccessful IVF treatments. The company also runs a unique, accredited in-house training academy, Oasis School for Human Embryology and Reproductive Medicine (OSHERM), that has trained over 200 medical professionals and published over 60 research papers. Oasis is also known for its highest standards of ethics in the industry and has launched a first of its kind andrology (male infertility) practice, known as AndroLife.

Kiran Gadela, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Oasis Fertility said, “Kedaara’s strategic partnership with Oasis is a significant milestone in our growth journey, and further cements our position as one of the most trusted providers of fertility treatments in India. We are delighted and excited about the prospects of leveraging Kedaara’s in-depth understanding of the sector and the Indian market and their experience in supporting & scaling marquee healthcare assets. We look forward to this partnership as we embark on a journey to pursue attractive synergistic acquisitions and create a leading fertility platform in India and South Asia to further our core purpose of helping couples achieve parenthood. With the help of our futuristic tech platform, we feel confident about executing on that strategy. We also thank the InvAscent team for their support over the past 6 years.”

Dr Durga Rao, Co-Founder & Medical Director, Oasis Fertility said, “Oasis’ patient-centric approach has been a symbol of excellence and transparency and our in-house training program has been the preferred choice for clinical talent in the country. We are delighted to welcome Kedaara Capital as a strategic partner on our mission to provide accessible, compassionate, and high-quality healthcare and to bring the joy of parenthood to couples across the country.”

According to the World Health Organisation, infertility affects 15% of reproductive-aged couples worldwide. Moreover, research suggests that the ovaries of Indian women age nearly six years earlier than their Caucasian counterparts, leading to earlier onset of infertility among Indian women. A confluence of environmental and lifestyle factors has further increased the incidence of fertility in India over the years. Infertility can cause tremendous emotional and psychological distress amongst couples. However, with timely medical care from providers like Oasis Fertility, many couples battling infertility are able to conceive and become parents.

Nishant Sharma, CIO & Managing Partner of Kedaara Capital said, “Oasis has created a scalable, replicable model and espouses a unique culture with clinical excellence and ethics at its core. Moreover, its highly experienced and well-trained clinical team has become a hallmark of excellence in the medical fraternity. We are excited to partner with Dr. Durga Rao, Kiran Gadela and the Oasis team in the journey to bring high quality, pioneering approach towards fertility treatment to people across India and adjacent markets. Kedaara, with its operational expertise, experience in healthcare and availability of additional capital, will support Oasis in the next step of its growth journey and in realising its vision of becoming the leading fertility chain in the country and adjacent geographies. We look forward to partnering with like-minded and culturally aligned IVF clinicians and practices across India and South Asia to form a fertility platform with patient centricity and clinical excellence as its bed rock.”

Vishy Chebrol, Co-Founder, CIO and Managing Director, InvAscent said, “We partnered with Dr Durga & Kiran in 2016 when Oasis was largely a Hyderabad focussed fertility chain. Since then, Oasis has successfully navigated the challenges of scaling. Along its journey, Oasis has gifted the joy of parenthood to thousands of couples. We wish them the absolute best in their journey to scale Oasis across the country.”

O3 Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor for the transaction and Samvad Partners was the legal counsel to Oasis Fertility. Quillon Partners acted as legal counsel to InvAscent and Veritas Legal acted as legal counsel to Kedaara Capital.

About Oasis Fertility

Bootstrapped and founded in 2009 by Dr Durga Rao and Kiran Gadela, Oasis Fertility (“Oasis”) is amongst the most scaled-up IVF chains in India. Having started with its first centre in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, Oasis today has 26 centres in 16 cities across the country. Oasis is a pure-play fertility player offering various assisted reproductive therapies such as OI/TI, IUI and IVF along with male infertility treatments.

Dr Durga is a renowned fertility specialist with 17 years of experience in the industry (including 8 years as a practising IVF specialist in NHS, UK and Canada) and heads the medical function Oasis as its Medical Director. She is passionate about the field of reproductive medicine, has several research publications in her name, and has trained over 100 medical professionals.

Kiran is first generation entrepreneur with over 25 years of work experience and has built the company from scratch. As the Managing Director of the company, he is responsible for the overall strategy and growth of the organization. Prior to starting Oasis, Kiran was an IT and management professional, having worked with large global corporations for over 12 years.

Oasis has played a pioneering role in the adoption of advanced equipment and therapies such, mTESA, ERA, PGT/PGS. Deeply committed to providing high quality care, Oasis’ systems and processes are aligned with global best practises thereby establishing a reputation for its ability to manage complex cases as it continues its mission to enhance the quality of care and bringing the joy of parenthood to couples across the country.

Website: www.oasisindia.in

About Kedaara

Kedaara is an operationally oriented private equity firm pursuing control and minority investment opportunities in India. It currently advises / manages over ~US$ 3.6 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 enabling them 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 Sunish Sharma, Nishant Sharma and Manish Kejriwal 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

Truecaller to Acquire Israeli App CallHero

Truecaller, the leading global platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communications, has entered into an agreement to acquire the Israeli company CallHero (www.getcallhero.com). CallHero has developed a unique technical solution for both Android and iPhone, with an AI-enabled assistant. CallHero's assistant can answer calls for you in a natural language, take messages for you and even block your calendar. The feature will be integrated into Truecaller in a phased manner.

Truecaller to acquire Israeli app CallHero

You can also read more about CallHero and the technology behind it on our blog

"CallHero gives the user intelligent support in handling incoming calls with the help of an AI-based assistant who answers the call. The conversation between the caller and the assistant is visible in text-based format, live in the app. This service will help our users prioritize what is relevant and important without having to talk. The technology that CallHero is going to strengthen our offering. The service will start in the US first since that's where CallHero operated but our ambition is of course to roll out the service in all our markets, including India. CallHero today has a well-developed advanced functionality for iPhone users, which is important in the western world, but also a valuable complement to our work to make Truecaller more efficient and user-friendly for both iPhone and Android users worldwide," said Alan Mamedi, CEO and Co-founder of Truecaller.

CallHero Joins Truecaller

Watch a short video about CallHero here

The agreed purchase price amounts to USD 4.5 million, of which USD 2.6 million will be paid in cash upon completion of the acquisition and USD 1.9 million through newly issued shares in Truecaller. The purpose of the issue of new shares is to strengthen the long-term commitment to Truecaller for certain key persons at CallHero. In addition, a potential additional purchase price of a maximum of USD 2 million will be paid, provided that certain goals are achieved for a period of up to four years after the transaction is completed. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2022. The acquisition will be financed through existing cash and newly issued shares in Truecaller AB. The acquisition is primarily a technology and competence acquisition and is not considered to have a material impact on the results in 2022.

For more information, please contact: press@truecaller.com.

About Truecaller

We enable safe and relevant conversations between people and make it efficient for businesses to connect with consumers. Fraud and unwanted communication are endemic to digital economies, especially in emerging markets. We are on a mission to build trust in communication. Truecaller is an essential part of everyday communication for over 300 million active users, with half a billion downloads since launch and close to 38 billion unwanted calls identified and blocked in 2021. Headquartered in Stockholm, since 2009, we are a Co-founder-led, entrepreneurial company, with a highly experienced management team. Truecaller has been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 8 October 2021.

For more information, please visit corporate.truecaller.com.

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

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/