Applabs in talks to acquire three companies

Even as the talks of merger with VisualSoft and eSolutions have failed, software testing firm Applabs has come up with a some new plans. Among them are the plans to acquire three companies and become a $ 100 million company. Up its sleeves is also the intention to become the top software testing company in the world and increase the India headcount by 600 in the present year as Sashi Reddy, CEO, Applabs reveals in the course of his interview with Kishore Kumar of CyberMedia News:

You came very close to clinch a merger deal with VisualSoft and eSolutions. So what went wrong with the plans?

It's been about five months since we announced the merger plans. The approval from the regulatory body was being delayed. At that moment we felt that we are taking too much time waiting. We needed to have a clear communication with our customers about our plans. Waiting in an uncertain environment was not good for us. It's the same for them (VisualSoft and eSolutions) also. Five months wait is a fair amount of wait to take the decision.

So where do you go from here?

We would like to become a $ 100 million in the next two years. We can't do this on our own if we grow organically. So we are looking at acquiring certain companies. We are in talks with three companies and we hope that within four months we would be able to announce something on that. What we feel right now is. This is a tactical plan to raise funds. Medium term plan is of course to become a $ 100 million company in the next two years. Long term plan is to become the top testing player in the world.

How has been the journey so far for Applabs?

This month we are completing exactly five years of starting the company. In five years we've grown to become the top testing company in India. We're well positioned in terms of plans to become the top company in the world in the next two years. Also when we started to focus on the testing market, there were not other people who were focusing on the same market. So we've been able to become well positioned in the market that is extremely fast growing, highly fragmented and we were able to establish ourselves with lots of nice customers. We have probably got about 70-75 active customers. At any given point of time in our lab today we have more than 100 software testing going on. So we have a nice customer base. And all these we could do before the market go a lot of attention.

What is your current area of focus?

We are focusing mainly on the technology vertical. But the big opportunity is to do the testing for the big enterprise customer. Now we are trying to move our focus from the technology vertical to the BFSI sector. That we've started doing for the last 8-12 months back and we expect this to be a big part of our revenue in the coming two years.

What are the India-specific plans of Applabs?

We are expecting to hire another 600 professionals this year. We are not planning to open new facilities. The focus may be on building small campuses but nothing beyond that.

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