SAP Ventures buys minority stake in Newgen Tech for Rs 10cr

11 Sep, 2008, 1905 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: Delhi-based document management software firm Newgen Technologies on Thursday announced sale of a minority stake to SAP Ventures, the venture capital arm of SAP, for Rs 10 crore.

The stake sold is under 10 per cent, Newgen MD Diwakar Nigam said without giving the exact stake. The Delhi-based company said that SAP Ventures will take advisory position without board-level representation in it.

"The investment by SAP will go towards our marketing requirements in the various emerging markets globally that we are entering," Nigam said.

Newgen provides business process management solutions and services and has development centres in Delhi and Chennai. The company is entering markets like Egypt, Ukraine, West Asia and Africa among others, he said.

This is the second investment in Newgen. The first one was by global banking major HSBC which invested Rs 30 crore and nominated its representative on Newgen's board.

Newgen, which had a turnover of Rs 93 crore for 2007-08, employs 1,100 people and will ramp up the head count by 400-500 in the next two years.

Speaking on the investment, SAP Ventures Partner Jai Das said: "We have been looking at India for investments for quite some time now and Newgen is a company with respectable size. It will go very well in the emerging markets."

As part of its investment plans in India, the company will pick up stake in another company in October with Rs 15-20 crore. It will continue to invest in about three companies in India every year for the next few years. The size of these investments will range between Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore.