Janchor, Goldman Sachs and Samara backed FirstMeridian acquires RLabs

7 Feb 2022 , 11:20 AM

Bengaluru based FirstMeridian Business Services has completed its acquisition of RLabs, an IT staffing and consulting firm with 1200+ technology professionals deployed across their clientele in 40+ locations in India. This marks the sixth acquisition by the FirstMeridian Group since its founding in mid-2018.

On the announcement of the RLabs acquisition, Mr Sudhakar Balakrishnan — Group CEO, FirstMeridian shared “RLabs is our third acquisition in the IT Staffing space over last three years. All these businesses have built their niches in the Technology space, and we believe they complement each other under the overall FirstMeridian Technology Staffing landscape. Each of these businesses shall be Independently managed, hereby realising scaling effects quickly while maintaining flexibility to expand. This acquisition of RLabs enables us to effectively support our customers in their growth as trusted partner for their technology personnel.”

Anurag Gupta — President — IT Staffing, FirstMeridian adds “ “Tech staffing business has evolved globally in the last 2-3 years. It is now pivoting to providing talent with multiple skill combinations in emerging technologies through contracting and managed services models. At the FirstMeridian Tech Staffing division, we have been investing in companies that will help us scale in this space. RLabs is one such renowned enabler with credible reputation among its marquee global clients, bringing in its deep tech knowhow of SAP stack and emerging technologies, and a very seasoned management team. RLabs will further strengthen our abilities to setup and manage Offshore Delivery Centres (ODCs) for our global clients besides providing traditional IT Staffing.”

On the completion of the acquisition Mr Vinodh Venkatesan — CEO, RLabs expressed “FirstMeridian’s deep market relationships in technology staffing space and PAN-India presence with ~50+ branches and ~3500+ deployment locations will enable RLAbs in setting up full-fledged delivery centres in multiple geographies, extending our SAP competency offerings to the domestic market.
Additional States “With RLabs operating as a part of the FirstMeridian Group, we believe we will be able to deliver cutting-edge technology solutions with accelerated turnaround time. We believe this is the right step forward in achieving service automation, operational excellence and strengthening our partnership with our key clients.”

As per the Assessment of Staffing Solutions Market in India report prepared by Frost & Sullivan. The country is witnessing high growth in technology hubs/ captives that are being set up by global companies. India has several advantages such as the availability of skilled talent, favourable operating environment, and language skills, which are attracting the global companies. In the beginning of 2021, more than 40 captives were in different stages of development in India. Existing captives are also scaling up their operations, as COVID-19 has accelerated the digital adoption across end user segments. Around 150 — 200 new companies are expected to set up captives in India over the next three years and this is projected to create 300,000 — 350,000 technology jobs.

Future of work is expected to be driven by automation and digital technology adoption. Artificial Intelligence is the most sought-after digital technology across Healthcare, Communications, Financial Services, and Transportation segments. Big Data, Internet-of-things and Robotics are the key technologies expected to be adopted in the Manufacturing segment. A few of the key job functions expected to drive the demand in the long-term in IT industry are big data specialists, digital marketing specialists, information security analysts, software and application developers, robotic engineers and fintech engineers.