The Hindu Business Line : WestBridge, others invest $4 m in Astra Business

WESTBRIDGE Capital Partners has announced it has led an investment of $4 million in Astra Business Services, a BPO company focused on the US collections market for healthcare and financial services.

Other investors in this round include Mr Feroze Waheed, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Astra, and senior executives from the US financial services industry. Mr Sumir Chadha and Mr K.P. Balaraj of WestBridge Capital Partners will both join the board of Astra.

WestBridge will assist the company in developing its India delivery systems, recruitment in India and the US, and in business development.

Mr Feroze Waheed in a statement said, "This timely injection of funds into Astra will be used entirely to unlock the growth potential that has been established through proven pilots with US-based customers. WestBridge Capital Partners is a highly regarded institutional investor in the US-India market, and an active, value-added investor in the BPO space. We are very excited in leveraging their strengths to build a global collections outsourcing business."

The company based in San Francisco and Gurgaon, India, has expertise in the US collections industry. The funds will be used for developing the collections operations in India and expanding the sales and marketing initiatives in the US.

Astra will focus on collections in the healthcare and financial services sectors, later expanding into the telecommunications and utilities sectors.

The company's focus would be to take advantage of the US-India model to provide higher recovery rates and better service on outsourced collections programmes for its customers. The size of the consumer collections industry in the US is approximately $12 billion.