Mastek Floats Arm In San Francisco

Mastek Ltd, the Mumbai-based software developer and exporter, has registered its 100 per cent US subsidiary in San Francisco, California under the name Jal Soft.

Jal Soft, which will operate as an independent arm developing its own products, has approached leading venture capital funds for an assessment of intellectual property assets. According to Mastek officials, the response from the fund managers has been encouraging.

The expected value of the property, which becomes the base for further assessement is estimated at around $ 10 million. The company expects an investment of around 30 per cent of this amount as equity by the venture capital funds. The company has been emboldened by its UK experience where its subsidiary in the year 1995-96 recorded an income of 2.1 million pounds while notching up a growth rate of over 400 per cent over the previous year.

 

The companys existing US subsidiary, Majesco Software Inc, on the other hand recorded a turnover of $ 3.9 million in 1995-96 which was an effective growth rate of 36 per cent over 1994-95.

Jal Soft, the 100 per cent subsidiary, would be initially marketing a Java based development tool named JAAL 1.0. The tool is designed for businesses to build large Internet/ intranet database applications with some 66 per cent fewer lines of code due to a unique interfacer. JAAL also uses the common gateway interface to communicate with web servers running under Windows NT, Windows 95 and UNIX.

According to Ashank Desai, managing director, Mastek, the idea is not to be India-centric but to be global-centric in the true sense of the term. Mastek UK is run by its CEO Mike Cast independent of instructions from the Mastek corporate headquarters in Mumbai. In 1995, Mastek has purchased a majority stake in Carter Cast Systems with Mike Cast retaining 10 per cent equity in the company. Mastek UK now makes up 18 per cent of Masteks worldwide revenue.

The current JAAL 1.0 is priced at approximately $ 2,000 and Ashank Desai hopes to touch a turnover of $3 million in the first year of operation.

With risks of entering with newer products in comparatively unknown markets being high Mastek would definitely have to receive venture fund support to market JAAL 1.0 and other products which we will develop in the US within the new company added Desai.

Mastek has already bagged some major export orders this year worth around two million pounds. It has already received orders for its banking solution software LAPS 2000 for which the company feels there is tremendous potential.