True North buys TA Associates' stake in Accion Labs

By Debjyoti Roy

  • 27 Sep 2022
Credit: 123RF.com

Homegrown private equity major True North has picked up a significant minority stake in software engineering company Accion Labs from US-based PE firm TA Associates, for an undisclosed sum.

Homegrown private equity major True North has picked up a significant minority stake in Accion Labs Inc., a software engineering product company focussed on emerging technologies in a secondary transaction.

True North routed this secondary market transaction for Accion through its Indium VI fund.

Founded by Kinesh Doshi in 2011, Pittsburgh-based Accion Labs focuses on enabling technology companies and enterprises leverage their expertise in areas such as advanced user experience, artificial intelligence, big data, analytics and migration to cloud along with software-as-a-service-based (SaaS) platforms. The company has more than 4,800 employees globally, spread over 20 locations. 

TA Associates along with Basil Technology Partners, a Singapore-based specialist technology investor, had picked up a stake in Accion Labs in March 2020. 

True North aims to invest up to 30% of funds that it manages in technology and digital businesses. Offlte, the investor has been scouting for deals in IT, ITeS space, digital engineering and SaaS categories.

In an exclusive interview with VCCircle, True North’s partner, Ashish Bhargava had said that the PE was eyeing to back digital-first companies by allocating more money for such firms in its seventh fund that is plans to launch early 2022.   

“Enterprises are adopting digital technologies with a new sense of urgency across the front and backend of business operations. There is a growing need for a new breed of nimble and innovative digital IT players like Accion Labs,” said Prasad Thrikutam, partner at True North. 

In August last year, True North had invested in QuEST Global, a reputed global product engineering and lifecycle services company. The firm also recently exited Actify Data Labs, a greenfield data-driven analytics company.

True North, however, had started planning exits from its previous fund portfolio firms since last year. In September 2021, the PE firm had sold RDC Concrete to Tiger Global Management-backed marketplace for construction materials Infra.Market. The PE also partly sold its pharmaceuticals-focused platform Integrace Pvt Ltd stake to Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings in October 2021.