homevideos Newsstartup NewsAnalytics Startup Course5 Intelligence adds $53 million to its war chest, eyes acquisitions with deep tech capabilities
Analytics Startup Course5 Intelligence adds $53 million to its war chest, eyes acquisitions with deep-tech capabilities
With $53 million in its latest round of funding, Course5 Intelligence says it is in talks with five companies for a possible acquisition. It hopes to close at least two acquisitions within 12 months.
Analytics & AI startup Course5 Intelligence has closed the second round of its maiden fundraising exercise, raising $53 million. In the first tranche, it raised $28 million from 360 Asset Management Tech Fund; the second tranche saw Nuvama’s Crossover Series of Funds and Carnelian Asset Advisors together invest $25 million. This puts Course5 Intelligence’s valuation at $250 million.
The funds come at a time when the company is keen on growing its footprint across geographies, through acquisitions. Chairman & CEO Ashwin Mittal says, “along with this $53 million we also have our own cash reserves, and we are also generating cash from the business. So we are looking at an outlay of $100 million to finance the next leg of growth. We are allocating $80 million for inorganic growth, and $20 million towards further development of innovation & tech that we can leverage from our AI labs”.
Course5 had started scouting for potential acquisition targets even before it embarked on its fundraising exercise. It is currently in talks with five companies and plans to complete at least two acquisitions within 12 months. “We are looking for companies that will bring with them strong AI capabilities, especially in the deep-tech space, with synergistic assets in the US, UK, and India. The candidates have revenues in the range of $10-20 million,” Mittal adds.
These will not be Course5’s first acquisitions. It recently absorbed Incivus, a tech startup specialising in AI-based ad creation and optimisation. This has helped it expand its services suite to existing large global corporations across USA, Europe and Canada. The firm uses data science and applied AI technology to help with predictive insights into business-critical aspects like sales and customer behaviour.
Mittal and his team are banking on the acquisitions to boost Course5’s revenues, which hit $50 million in FY23. They expect to grow at 30-35% on a year-on-year basis going forward, are working with an internal target of $200 million in revenues in the next 3 years.
Course5 is also clear about where it wants to grow its business. With 75-80% of its revenue coming from the US market, it has a small footprint in India, and has no plans to change this in a significant way in the near future. But that’s not to say that a bigger India footprint is off the table. Mittal is optimistic that Course5 will be able to Make In India for the world, mining India’s growing tech skill-set and know-how in emerging areas like deep-tech, AI and ML.
Unicorn status may be a while away, but the Mumbai-based company has its sights set on a Dalal Street debut, and hopes it can execute this in the next 18-24 months, if its expansion plans pan out.
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First Published: Jun 6, 2023 8:19 PM IST
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