Speridian soars high after turbulent teens

The breakfast with a top guy from a multimillion-dollar IT company started as one would expect. Along with toast and sausages, steaming idli and crispy dosas were also on offer at the Thiruvananthapuram, aka Trivandrum, luxury hotel. Waiters hovered around to ensure everything was in order while guests sipped their preferred tea or coffee from a wide selection.

Then came the surprise as KP Hari, the co-founder and managing partner of Speridian Technologies, recalled his roots in the city.

“My childhood house in Neyyattinkara, had no electricity or tap water. My father ran a firewood shop nearby. We were poor growing up, just hand to mouth from the income he got. He had to sell the small pieces of land to put us through college. I still remember the kerosene lamp which we used to study under”.

India was then racing to expand colour television coverage across the country for the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi.

“Just with enough money for that day’s food, my parents kept the days going with no complaints, and thankful to the few rupees we earned that day. It was really tough growing up, the limited resources we had made us really prepared for the future,” continued KP, as his colleagues in Speridian Technologies call him.

A few days back, Speridian, the IT services and products firm with an increasingly global footprint celebrated its 19th birthday. As about 1,000 employees and their families got together for an evening of fun and feast, Sajan Pillai, former UST Global's CEO and the head of McLaren Strategic Ventures, took to the stage and made a prediction.

“Very soon, Speridian would be a unicorn. No other IT services company can say half of its revenue comes from its products. They all depend on their services for the bulk of their revenue,” he said.

But KP was not in the mood to gloat over the present or the future. He was trawling back in time and recalling his hard grind on his way up.

“We lost our mother in 1985 to cancer and I am sad that she did not see the results of her struggle or get to enjoy the fruits of her hard work which resulted in our success. We lost our dad in 1995, but very happy that he had seen all of us settled in our lives. He had a very good satisfying life, I think.”

The grim memories of the IT company founder who was chauffeured to the hotel were vivid. But it was not bitterness that dominated, rather more a feeling of being grounded in reality despite rising to the top of the heap.

After getting his mechanical engineering degree in 1985, KP left for Bombay, or Mumbai as it is now known. “There wasn’t much hope of getting a position as a mechanical engineer in Kerala those days as there were only about four factories in the entire state.”

His initial employment as a mechanical engineer left him more disappointed than energised. Soon after, at his elder brother’s bidding and help, Hari turned to computer engineering and did the master’s at the Warangal Regional Engineering College. By then, he had also started teaching.

By 1993, KP, who had switched to software engineering by then, joined the US based company Nexgenix and met another Keralite there, Girish Panicker (GP as he is known). They struck up a close friendship.

That bond later became the KP-GP combo and led to the establishment of Speridian Technologies.

A year after joining Nexgenix, KP and his family were on a plane to the US, the land of opportunities. “With two suitcases and 200 dollars. That is all I had,” KP recalls that trip in 1994. “That will be the title of a book I plan to write if I get an opportunity.”

The lack of deep pockets had never worried KP as he had seen how his dad KK Parameswaran Pillai took on much bigger odds as he battled alone to provide for his children’s education. “I still thank my mother, Sarasamma, and father every day for that. They could have easily given up and said, ‘we can’t afford it.’ But my dad found ways to overcome what may have easily overwhelmed others. They kept the faith and put everything on our education.”

“And he never complained about the hand he was dealt. He had his fair share of ups and downs in several businesses and trades, but he was humble, nice and generous to everyone.” The sense of pride in KP’s voice was justifiable and one suspects those are the qualities he carries today in Speridian.

Maybe his dad’s enterprising attitude kindled in KP and led him to join Panicker, who founded Speridian Technologies (earlier known as Karma Consulting Services).

“We started Speridian with a high-level idea of providing IT Services, develop products. The IT industry was growing then, and we felt that is where we wanted to be. We kept pivoting on every major step, hiring good people around us which helped to grow Speridian to the position where we are today.”

By 2007, both KP and GP were working full time on Speridian and its revenue stream surged to hit 4 million dollars and more software projects were in the pipeline. “By 2012, our revenue was 12 million dollars, and the next year it doubled to 25 million after involvement in Obamacare as the software platform BenefitAlign pitched us into another orbit,” said KP.

Speridian used that experience and launched itself into the insurance business. In 2017, it launched truecoverage.com. It provided, again, some valuable lessons – the initial splurge of half a million dollars for the launch campaign brought little returns.

A break came the following year after the company acquired a small brokerage firm selling insurance. It provided the framework for a foray into the lucrative online insurance sector. “We didn’t know the insurance business. We are a technology company. So, we acquired the firm which knew how to sell the insurance, and it brought in the operational structure and clients.”

Now, truecoverage.com has become a star performer in Speridian’s stable, which lists an array of services and products. “It has been doubling revenue every year and big kudos to GP, who is spending all his energy into it and the truecoverage team.” gushed KP.

The upward trajectory demanded the expansion of offices in various parts of the world. “In Trivandrum, we started even before the startup ecosystem was in place. We started with an eight-seater place for the back-office operations in the incubation facility in the Technopark.”

“Now, we have offices in Thejaswini, Chandragiri, and Phase-3 buildings in the park. We plan to start a campus on the two acres we acquired inside the park. We have 800 people working in Trivandrum and over 200 people in Cochin and another 250 in Calicut. Bangalore is also growing fast, so is Mumbai,” KP reeled off figures like an accountant.

As Speridian gets ready to end its teen years, the firm employs thousands across the Americas, Middle East, Singapore, India, and Pakistan. And it is on a trajectory for much greater heights. But, unlike many other such firms, it has mostly kept out of the media hype and grown organically.

“It was a deliberate decision to keep under the radar as we didn’t want undue attention,” says KP. “But now we think we are ready for the next stage,” he said, just like a determined teen entering his twenties.

So what about Sajan Pillai’s prediction of a unicorn status soon? Or even an IPO? KP parried away such queries with a disarming smile. “That are some of the plans we have,” is all that the 59-year-old would say.

A roadmap for a greener Kerala

As everyone was ringing in the new year, one countdown went unnoticed: Kerala's ambitious plan to mitigate the effects of climate change. In December, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan released a report stating that Kerala would be “a 100% renewable energy-based state by 2040 and achieve net carbon neutrality by 2050.” The most visible symbol of this change is the increasing number of clean energy vehicles on the roads. According to official data, the sale of electric vehicles has seen a 450% year-on-year jump in 2022, with over 39,000 green-plated vehicles hitting the road. It is largely unknown that the first spark of the EV revolution came from Kerala, but we have booked a trip on the time machine to find out more details and will be back with them soon.

Globally, electric vehicle manufacturers are racing to catch up with market leader Tesla. Japanese companies like Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi have invested billions in EVs, while Honda is partnering with Sony and unveiled their product last week at the CES conference in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, BMW launched a new concept car that they claim will use AI-powered virtual assistants and be the “ world's first colour-changing car.” It remains to be seen how this will play out, but their video featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger was certainly colourful enough. 

Golden sands of Dubai beckon again

It is ambitious even by the lofty standards of oil-rich Dubai. The government there has unveiled a plan to create an US$8.7 trillion economy by 2033. Called D33, it aims to boost investments in the kingdom, especially in new technology and startup incubation. “A key part of D33 is to focus on digital transformation projects and add 400 cities as key trade partners. Given the long-standing ties with Kerala, it is a great opportunity for the state to take advantage of this and establish more business connections with Dubai,” reports Arabian News. The plan will also see the launch of Sandbox Dubai, which aims to make the city a major hub for incubating business innovation by enabling the testing and marketing of new products and technologies. Moreover, Dubai also plans to “support the growth of 30 firms to become unicorns in the next decade.”

More Spielbergs around you

If you think you are getting too many social media videos, think again. The latest AI programs are going to make it worse. You don’t even have to film videos now to make one. Go to platforms like QuickVid and just type in what you want and it will do it for you, reports TechCrunch. It will choose footage from its library, write a script, add AI-generated images, and plug in royalty-free music. QuickVid’s creator, Daniel Habib, says that he’s building the service to help creators meet the “ever-growing” demand from their fans. Thanks mate.

Back to the future in Las Vegas

The CES conference is back with a bang after two years with eye-popping gadgets and quirky innovations. The one that got a lot of attention, apart from the serious stuff like new EVs, is a new health gadget which can be attached to the toilet bowl. Called U-Scan, it analyses your urine every day and sends data to an app. The sensor will be able to tell your “ stream” apart from that of visitors, because the U-Scan is able to differentiate based on the “ distance and speed of the flow, ” reports CNET. (Seriously, don’t ask about the trial runs.) Other notable products included a wireless television, a robotic dog that teaches kids to program, and pedal-powered laptops. If you are a gadget freak, click here to go through the products.

In our previous newsletter we wrongly spelt name of Anish Achuthan as Aneesh. We regret the error and our archives have been updated with the correct spelling.