Blackstone to invest in outsourcing startup TaskUs

Private equity investor Blackstone on Thursday said it has agreed to invest in TaskUs in a deal which values the firm at more than $500 million. TaskUs is a customer service and business process outsourcing (BPO) services provider for technology companies.

While Blackstone did not provide financial details of the transaction, according to a Bloomberg report the private equity major is buying a “large” stake for $250 million.

With the capital raised in the round, TaskUs intends to make new investments in Europe, India and Latin America, the company said in a statement. TaskUs, founded in 2008 by Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, has an office in Bengaluru and serves several Indian clients.

The firm’s business process solutions, which leverage the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, advanced learning management systems and big data, help companies quickly scale.

“The growth in ride sharing, social media, online food delivery, e-commerce and autonomous driving is creating an enormous need for enabling business services. TaskUs has established a leadership position in this domain with its base of marquee customers, unique culture, and relentless focus on customer delivery,” said Amit Dixit, senior managing director at Blackstone.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

“This partnership will help us dramatically increase our investment in consulting, technology and innovation to support our customers’ efforts to streamline and refine their customer experience,” co-founder Maddock, who is also chief executive, said. Besides making new investments with the money raised, TaskUs would also continue with expansion in the countries where they operate—the United States, the Philippines, Mexico and Taiwan, Maddock added.

Blackstone has a track record of investing and building outsourcing firms. In June, French company Teleperformance acquired Blackstone’s portfolio company Intelenet, a BPO, at an enterprise value of $1 billion, marking the private equity firm’s biggest exit from its Indian portfolio. This was the second time Blackstone exited Intelenet. In 2007, it first bought a stake in Intelenet to sell it four years later to the U.K.-based Serco. In late 2015, Blackstone bought back Intelenet from Serco for about $385 million. In 2016, Blackstone bought a majority stake in outsourcing services provider Mphasis from Hewlett Packard Enterprise for nearly $816 million.