True North and others invest $93 million in US-based Accion Labs

Home-grown private equity fund True North on Tuesday announced that it has acquired a significant minority stake in digital engineering company Accion Labs for USD 93 million along with co-investors.

The stake in the USA's Pittsburg-based Accion has been acquired by the True North-advised Indium VI (Mauritius) Holdings from private equity fund TA Associates and other shareholders, as per an official statement.

The Kinesh Doshi-led Accion was founded in 2011, and focuses on digital transformation projects for global enterprises and technology firms. It has 4,800 employees globally spread across 20 locations, who do digital consulting, innovation and digital product engineering, data/machine learning engineering and automation work.

 

The True North statement said it aims to invest up to 30 per cent of funds that it manages or advises in tech and digital businesses, making digital engineering and software as a service companies as important focus areas for the firm.

Its partner Prasad Thrikutam said enterprises are adopting digital technologies with a new sense of urgency across the front and backend of business operations, which makes the latest investment in Accion interesting.

"We are excited about Accion's deep digital expertise, customer centricity, and its approach to doing business. Most of all, we have strong confidence in the firm's management team to build Accion Labs into a respected global leader," he added.

TA's managing director Dhiraj Poddar said the fund had first invested in the company in 2020 in the belief that it is uniquely positioned to capitalise on macro trends driving the digital engineering market's rapid expansion, and its performance since then reconfirms its confidence.

"True North's strategic vision, experience of its partners and their proven partnership with TA should help us in achieving our mission 'to transform businesses and improve life through the applications of emerging technologies'," Doshi said.