Hillhouse Investment partners with industry veterans to launch BPM platform
MUMBAI, INDIA — Private equity firm Hillhouse Investment is reportedly partnering with two former India Business Process Management (BPM) executives, Gautam Barai and Gautam Narayan, to launch Novarete, a new IT-enabled BPM company.
The proposed $300-400 million investment will fund Novarete’s expansion into healthcare, insurance, and banking through organic and acquisition-driven growth.
Hillhouse is one of the world’s largest private alternatives managers, managing capital on behalf of leading global institutional clients, including university endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
With Hillhouse’s backing, Novarete reportedly plans to expand its team within a couple of months.
The firm also aims to challenge rivals like EXL Service in offering insurance, healthcare, banking, media, and financial services.
The Novarete launch echoes past instances of global private equity funds partnering with industry veterans to pursue India BPM consolidation. In 2016, Apollo Global backed former GE Capital India executives to acquire commercial lending and leasing assets from their ex-employer.
Experts said that with Barai and Narayan’s expertise combined with Hillhouse’s financial backing, Novarete seems poised to disrupt India’s competitive BPM space.
Barai is the former Chief Operating Officer and President of BPM firm WNS. He was instrumental in the firm’s growth from a $300 million market cap to $4.5 billion over a 10-year period. He led sales & marketing, solutions to client delivery, technology, transformation, analytics, and Al across the global delivery locations.
Meanwhile, Narayan worked as an ex-partner at the private equity firm Apax for 16 years. He participated in and drove value creation in various successful technology investments, including IGATE-Patni, GlobalLogic, and Zensar.
