Mindtree IPO to fund expansion in India and beyond

The Indian services firm sees ERP and SAP skills as a key area of expansion and is looking to boost its presence in France and Germany

Fresh from raising $54m through its IPO earlier this month, India-based IT services firm MindTree Consulting has confirmed it is to expand its operations and is on the look out for acquisitions.

Speaking to IT Week, Anjan Lahiri, executive vice-president for Europe at MindTree, said that the purpose of the IPO was to help fund two new facilities in India and also provide an acquisition war chest.

"Our biggest office is in Bangalore, but we want to open a new facility in Chennai and we also want to open a site in a tier-two city called Bhubaneshwar, which will help tackle the problem of staff shortages in the tier-one cities," he said.

He added that the company was also looking for acquisitions to bolster its skill sets in both India and Europe. "Any acquisitions will be opportunistic, although we do see ERP and SAP skills as a key area for expansion," he said. " We also need to expand our front-end skills [in the West] and are particularly looking for non-English language skills as we expand in France and Germany."

Any acquisitions would further accelerate MindTree's rapid expansion, which last year saw it become the fastest Indian IT company to reach revenues of over $100m.