Carlyle invests $10 M in Newgen Imaging

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Friday, 29 October 2004, 19:30 IST
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CHENNAI: In what is billed as one of the first venture capital investments in the e-publishing services sector in India, Carlyle Group has invested $10 million in the Chennai-based Newgen Imaging Systems in the first round outside funding for the company. The nine-year old Newgen Imaging is an integrated services provider addressing end-to-end needs of the ePublishing industry, handling the projects in books, journals, and reference works. Carlyle Group is understood to have picked up a substantial equity stake in the firm, which is estimated to have a topline of $5-6 million with a very high profitability.When contacted, Mr V Prabhakar Ram, the core promoter of Newgen Imaging said, “We have not yet officially announced it. The deal is also not fully completed”. However market sources confirmed the deal was inked a couple of weeks ago. Carlyle Group is one of the active investors in the IT sector and it earlier invested in companies like Financial Software Solutions (FSS), Quest and Usha Telecom. It is also learnt from the market that the deal was facilitated by the city-based investment banking firm - Veda Capital. Newgen’s clientele include 12 of the world’s leading publishers, across Europe and USA. With a combination of traditional typesetting skills and high-end ePublishing technologies, the company offers an attractive outsourcing proposition for the western world from India. It has close to 600 trained publishing professionals. Using the fresh funds raised from VC investment, it is learnt that the company’s plan is to expand its operations by doubling its workforce over the next one year period. The company employs professionals holding a Masters/ Ph.D. in Science, Engineering or IT.