PE firm Kedaara invests in product engineering services company GS Lab

Private equity firm Kedaara acquired stake in Pune-based digital product engineering services company Great Software Laboratory (GS Lab). Kedaara has acquired a significant minority stake in the company, but the financial details of the deals were not disclosed.

GS Labs has grown at a rate of over 20 per cent in 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.”

Digital product engineering services is a high-growth sector globally. According to NASSCOM, India’s engineering R&D sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13% to $ 65 billion by 2025, up from US$ 31bn in 2019. This growth is being fueled by rapidly accelerating digitalization across all industry verticals.

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.