Zodius seed funding supports Antuit's US acquisition

Antuit was launched in March by Arjit Sengupta, formerly an executive at IBM and Accenture, focusing on supply chain analytics for clients based in Asia Pacific. It has an office in Bangalore in addition to a presence in Singapore.

The acquisition of Marketwell - completed in July as cash and stock deal - gives Antuit an office in New York and a client list that includes several Fortune 500 companies. As part of the transaction, Yogi Shankar, business partner of Marketwell founder Navin Sharma and a senior executive at Avon and Comcast, has joined Antuit alongside the existing Marketwell team.

Antuit will initially target customers in consumer packaged goods and retail, including e-commerce, and transportation and logistics. The business will subsequently expand to incorporate new industries through strategic client relationships and acquisitions.

"At Zodius, as partners of the Antuit management team, we see Antuit as a growth platform which will grow organically, attract the best of talent and also make further acquisitions as it strives to become a market leader," said Neeraj Bhargava, CEO of Zodius Advisors. "We expect to deploy significantly more capital for M&A, capability build-out and investments in products and branding over the next few years."

Bhargava, who was co-founder and CEO of WNS and a partner at McKinsey& Company before setting up Zodius, will become chairman of Antuit.

Zodius styles itself as a specialist operator-investor, focusing on big data and analytics, digital media and commerce, and education. It aims to partner with proven entrepreneurs to build disruptive and market-defining businesses. The firm typically makes one investment every six months.

Existing portfolio companies include digital marketing specialist Group FMG; BluFin, which develops financial research-based products; artist management and booking agency Only Much Louder; BookAdda, a platform for organizing groups for purchasing academic books online; and Enki Professional Holdings, which specializes in education for non-traditional careers.

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• Topics
• Technology
• Venture
• Early-stage
• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• seed
• M&A
• USA
• India
• Singapore
• TMT