Everstone Capital, along with Solmark, has signed an agreement to invest INR 403 crore (USD 66 million)for acquiring a controlling stake in Serviont Global Solutions Ltd (Servion). The investment has been done through Evertech Pte Ltd, the Everstone Group’s technology investing platform. 

Servion specializes in delivering cutting edge 'Customer Interaction Management’ (CIM) solutions and applications for companies, enhancing customer interactions via the phone, internet, email, chat and social media. The company has revenues exceeding INR 350 crore in FY2014, a marquee customer base and global footprint of more than 60 countries.

Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to this transaction which was the largest control transaction by a PE fund in the Indian IT services space in 2014.

Prateek Dhawan, Managing Director, Everstone, who led this transaction and will be joining the board of the company, said, “Servion’s cutting edge solutions and outstanding management team offer a unique and strong investment opportunity. Combining efforts with our long standing friends and partners at Solmark will enable us to propel the company’s growth to the next level.” Balakrishnan K., CEO & Managing Director, Servion, said, “Servion is at an inflection point today. We aim to widen our footprint, design and adopt new age technologies, deepen our understanding of customer problems and as a result, positively impact every single interaction happening across the world.

To enable us to get there, we need to make strategic investments in several critical areas, and this partnership with Everstone and Solmark will help us address that. We are excited about the partnership and we trust that their combined expertise, experience, and track record of partnering with management teams will help us achieve the shared vision of building a leading global business.”

Puneet Pushkarna, General Partner, Solmark, said, “We look forward to working with the talented management team and employees at Servion to accelerate the company’s growth and strengthen its leadership as a complete CIM solution provider. We are also excited to work with our friends at Everstone as partners and co-investors.”

Amit Singh, Executive Director, Avendus, said, “The market for next generation of contact centres is expected to grow rapidly especially due to the advent of new technologies in the areas of cloud, virtualization, voice recognition and increasing demand for multichannel customer interaction platforms. 

Servion is at the forefront of enabling this evolution and this investment by Everstone will further cement its position as the de facto leader in this space.”

Avendus is the leading advisor in the IT services / BPO sector and has advised on 30+ IT services / BPO deals in the past 5 years. This year the firm has concluded 24 deals so far and was amongst the top two financial advisors by overall number of deals in India (as per Mergermarket for CY Q1-Q3 2014).

About Everstone Group

The Everstone Group is a premier India and South East Asia focused private equity and real estate investment firm. Headquartered in Singapore, Everstone has over 140 people working across five offices (Singapore, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Mauritius). Everstone was awarded the Private Equity Firm of the Year in India by Private Equity International for three consecutive years (2011, 2012 and 2013).

For more information, please visit www.everstonecapital.com

About Solmark

Solmark, an 'Entrepreneurs Equity Fund', aims to partner with entrepreneurs to create global leaders in markets their companies serve. Founded by a group of tech entrepreneurs who have launched and built several successful companies, Solmark’s operating managers bring expertise in all aspects of growing a company in a competitive global marketplace, helping entrepreneurs grow and scale their business. Solmark has a presence in the Silicon Valley, New York, Washington DC, and Singapore.

For more information, please visit www.solmark.com

About Servion

Established in 1995, Servion Global Solutions Ltd. specializes in Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions that help companies enhance customer interactions via phone, internet, email, chat and social media. With over 600 customers and 1000 installations in more than 60 countries, Servion’s products and solutions handle in excess of 7 billion voice/fax/Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)/Web/e-mail interactions per year. The company has an employee base of over 800. The CIM solutions are offered to a wide range of verticals such as banking and finance, telecommunications, business process outsourcing, transportation, retail, and hospitality.

For more information, please visit www.servion.com