Norwest to invest $20 mn in Adventity

Adventity, financial analytics-focused KPO and BPO services provider, has secured $20 million (around Rs 90 crore) funding from an investment group led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP).

Adventity will use the fund to expand its market presence and build service offerings. Niket Patankar, co-founder and CEO of Adventity's US operations, said, "A portion of the funds will be invested in increasing the capacity of the office in Mumbai and also opening another office outside Mumbai."

Adventity started its operations in January 2004 and has more than 2,000 employees globally, with almost 30 clients in the KPO segment.

Chartered accountants and MBA graduates form a major chunk of the employees. Almost 60 per cent of the revenue of the company comes from the US, 10 per cent from Europe and 30 per cent from the APAC region.

Pramod Haque, managing partner, NVP, said, "To move up the value chain, India should focus on offering high-value, high-impact differentiated services which require deep domain expertise."

Haque also noted that though KPO is a subset of the BPO industry it can over a period of time allow companies to take advantage of the knowledge and the low-cost arbitrage model.

According to analysts, the KPO market will reach $17 billion by 2010. Besides the KPO services, Adventity's products include financial research for global investment banks and asset management markets, offshore and mortgage origination and processing service for the US mortgage market, revenue accounting service to the airline industry and turn-key credit, debit and loyalty cards program management and transaction processing.