A baby that’s just a year old to the Indian market but is in its teens in the US market, that’s Clearwater Analytics, and it seems quite clear about why it is in the Indian market. US-headquartered SaaS company entered this market to channelise the country’s skilled talent pool to address the need of the US and European markets, stated the chief of Clearwater Analytics India.
Anurag Singh, Managing Director, Clearwater Analytics India told The Free Press Journal, “We were looking at India to attract the right talent. Our presence in India is more to do with creating a next generation platform, strengthening the present platform and getting the right people to support the platform.” Its team strength in India is 170.
It started hiring in August of last year. Despite the pandemic, the company continued with acquiring more talent. “We had our first training sessions and at that point of time, COVID-19 had not hit India. In December, our teams from the US could come to India and train the staff in India to bring them up to speed, technology and operations.”
Now, the employees at Clearwater Analytics India are fairly divided between operations and development.
The company offers solutions for automated investment data aggregation, reconciliation, accounting, and reporting. It helps thousands of organisations to get access to investment portfolio data. The company reports on more than USD 4 trillion in assets for clients.
Singh added the company’s solution offers daily reports to various investors that usually struggle to get access to monthly reports. “Most Fortune 500 companies use our service to manage and keep track of their portfolios.” Some clients include Arch Capital, AXA Art Insurance, Catalina Holdings, Cisco, Convex Group, Facebook, FBD Insurance, Garmin, J.P. Morgan, London & Capital, Oracle, Spotify, Starbucks, Unum Group, and many others. “The market for the assets that we provide solutions for are still largely in the United States and Europe.”
Clearwater Analytics is looking at the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. But this is not to offer its entire range of business solutions, but to tap into the right talents and manage operations of other regions, reiterated Singh. “...Though we have some customers in the region.”
Singh stated, “Over the next few years, we will see substantial traction as we try to understand India as a business geography.” He stressed that, on a personal front, he is very bullish about India. Meanwhile, his company is optimistic about the talent that India can deliver.
To grow overall revenues, expansion to the APAC region will be essential. “India falls under APAC and it is a region, we would like to invest in over time.”
The company is investing in machine learning as the company does not want to keep adding staff for operations. “We wish to remain a SaaS company, create the next generation technology and hope to incorporate new technologies like AWS, machine learning etc in each component. And find the right way to ingest data.”
When quizzed about data policies various countries are adopting, Singh added that some governments have policies where they wish data to remain within their boundaries. In that case, he said, the company will have to abide by such regulations. However, problems will arise if the reference data is also treated as exclusive data instead of being treated as common data. This is mainly because at national level various countries have signed data-sharing agreements with each other. Thus, changing data regulations will not be very easy, hinted Singh.
Clearwater Analytics — has offices in Edinburgh, New York, Seattle and Delhi — recently set-up offices in Singapore. At present, the company employs around 1,100 people across the world.
Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) invested in Clearwater Analytics in 2016 and is the company's majority shareholder. The company recently received fresh investments from Permira, Warburg Pincus, Dragoneer Investment Group and Durable Capital. The company eventually plans to raise funds through an IPO.
