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The private equity arm of investment bank Goldman Sachs has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Gurugram-based HR software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm PeopleStrong for around $130 million (around Rs 1,200 crore), people in the know told ET.“Goldman Sachs has acquired the Multiples PE’s 84% stake in PeopleStrong in addition to buying out a part of the Esops pool from the company’s employees,” one of the persons said.This is a second major private equity buyout deal of a SaaS firm this year, after Singapore-based private equity firm Everstone Capital acquired around 80% of the bootstrapped startup Wingify for around $200 million in January.
Goldman Sachs and Multiples PE had been in discussions over this transaction for the last four to five months, another person said.According to Tracxn, Multiples PE held 84.3% stake in PeopleStrong, followed by the employee stock option (Esop) pool, towards which 9.
7% of the shares are allocated. The company’s founder holds 2% stake and the remaining is with early backers and angel investors.Multiples PE had acquired the controlling stake in PeopleStrong in 2017 with a mix of primary and secondary investments amounting to around Rs 400 crore, making it an almost threefold return on its eight-year-old investment.
It had bought out shares of PeopleStrong held by Lumis Partners.PeopleStrong, founded by Pankaj Bansal in 2005, presently serves over 500 companies, and has operations across India, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East.Email queries sent to PeopleStrong, Goldman Sachs and Multiples PE did not elicit a response at the time of publishing.
In fiscal 2024, PeopleStrong reported total revenues of Rs 274.5 crore, marginally higher than Rs 271.7 crore in FY23, as per the company’s regulatory filings sourced from Tofler.
However, it managed to contain its costs significantly and turned profitable in FY24.For the year ended March 2024, PeopleStrong posted Rs 57 crore in net profit, compared to a Rs 84 crore net loss in the year-ago period. During the year, PeopleStrong divested its assessment and remote proctoring business Wheebox to Educational Testing Service (ETS).
The company hasn’t yet filed its financials for FY25.The deal also points to rising interest from private equity investors in the HR SaaS space. In March this year, SaaS unicorn Darwinbox, which specialises in HR services, closed a $140 million funding round co-led by global private equity firms Partners Group and KKR.
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