Talisma will move to Campus Management with 150 people.
Talisma, the Bangalore-headquartered customer engagement management solutions provider, which was acquired by the US-based nGenera in May this year, has spun off its customer relationship management (CRM) business and sold it to Campus Management, a portfolio company of Leeds Equity Partners in the US.
Though both companies declined to disclose the size of the acquisition, market estimates peg it around Rs 140 crore. With this, Talisma India along with it’s 150-odd employees will now move to Campus Management’s fold, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the later in the Asia Pacific region.
Campus Management, which recorded a revenue of close to $100 million last year, employs about 350 people with a majority of them located in the US, and a few in Europe. The Florida-based enterprise software firm provides talent management software solutions and student information system to its clients in the space of higher education in North America, especially in the US. The acquisition of Talisma’s CRM business will provide the company with an opportunity to foray into sectors like banking and financial services, manufacturing, telecom and media and, travel and leisure, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.
“This is a very well thought-out acquisition for us. The acquisition makes us a compelling combination, and is a logical way for Campus Management to expand our ecosystem of solutions, and to build our capacity to develop, market and deliver innovations to our customers,” Timothy B Loomer, president and CEO of Campus Management told Business Standard. Besides Leeds Equity Partners, which presently holds about 70 per cent stake in the company, Ares Capital is also an investor in Campus Management. Loomer said the company plans to increase Talisma’s headcount in India by 70 people over the next 6-9 months, following the acquisition.
Talisma owes its origin to Indian entrepreneur and an ex-Microsoft executive Pradeep Singh, who hived off the software product division of Aditi Technologies, the company which he owns, to form a separate company in September 1999.
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Since then Talisma, funded by venture capital firm Oak Investment Partners, had been operating in the CRM space until 2004 when the company acquired eAssist, a San Diego-based firm which helped it foray into the customer interaction management space.
Of the 300-odd employees Talisma had globally, 150 were located in India who were focussing purely on CRM suite of applications, which was core to the company.
Earlier this year, nGenera, another portfolio company of Oak Investment Partners, acquired Talisma in an all stock-deal, the largest by the 16-month-old company at that point of time. Post the acquisition, while nGenera has integrated Talisma’s CIM business with it completely, the Indian business which was primarily focussed on the CRM space was operating as an independent business, although as a fully-owned subsidiary.
Over 200 customers use Talisma’s CRM applications globally of which 100 are located in the Asia Pacific region, with majority them are in India. The leading names who use Talisma CRM software in India include ICICI Bank, Sony (India & Singapore), L&T, Hindustan Unilever, Club Mahindra, Yatra, Bajaj Capital, Adecco India, TeamLease and Ma Foi Management Consultants.