June 21, 2008 EdServ Softsystems plans IPO

EdServ Softsystems Limited (formerly Lambent Softsystems), a web learning, IT consulting and resource deployment company, is planning to enter the capital market with an initial public offering (IPO) of 40.8 lakh equity shares of Rs. 10 each for cash at a price to be decided through a book-building process.

Incorporated in 2001, Chennai-based EdServ launched HEADS (Humanware Education And Deployment System), a 4th generation technology education model that uses web-based e-learning to seamlessly integrate manpower demand and supply in number and skills right from development to deployment. HEADS model has a mandatory job fitment for every student fresher who registers for a career programme. The company acquired ELMAQ EDUCATION, a leading IT training brand in Tamil Nadu, sometime ago to grow aggressively in education and training space.

Kalpathi Investments (P) Ltd., a venture funding company, has invested Rs. 380 lakhs in EdServ to pick up 47 per cent stake in the company, whose paid-up capital currently stands at Rs.792 lakhs. The remaining shares are held by the promoters and their associates. EdServ is promoted by S. Giridharan, who promoted Radiant Software Limited in the 1990s. He also had served as a director of SSI Limited. Mr. Giridharan, an Oracle and Web trainer himself, has worked extensively in training solutions since 1992 during his tenure with SSI, Radiant, ELMAQ before founding the 4th Generation HEADS model of education in 2008 in EdServ.

EdServ closed 2007-08 with a PAT (profit after tax) of Rs. 253 lakhs. The company, according to Mr. Giridharan, has signed up with GoFrugal Technologies, the largest software maker in India for retail operations automation, to exclusively develop and deliver web-based e-contents on retail operations, sales and accounting training using RAYMEDI, the retail software owned by GoFrugal. EdServ is also a Microsoft empower partner for developing and implementing product suites around Microsoft Windows and other tools.

HEADS, Mr. Giridharan said, worked with a purpose of enhancing the employability of a fresher. HEADS model had back-to-back arrangement with industry on job positions and requirements that included job specifications, content and curriculum with firm assessment requirements, he added. HEADS model, he said, functioned on a software portal called LAMPS (Learning, Assessment, Placement, Management System). LAMPS got fully developed to run learning contents in e-learning format and also to link client to a student resource through a partner-led centre at various strategic locations much in the same way as a typical training centres chain, he added. ``EdServ is trademarked and the company has copyrighted all its contents and the software system, and also filed provisional patent for its original idea on LAMPS and the HEADS model,'' he pointed out.