Indian staffing company Xpheno aims to file for an initial public offering in November 2027 to fund acquisitions and overseas expansion, a top executive said.
The firm, which derives more than half of its revenue from staffing solutions for global capability centers, is targeting an EBITDA margin of 5% at the time of listing, founder Kamal Karanth said in an interview at the end of last month.
“We are close to 3% EBITDA at this point in time,” Karanth said. “We think that makes us compelling, competitive and different from the existing staffing companies, from generalized staffing companies.”
Xpheno did not disclose the valuation it plans to target at the IPO. They had earlier said that they plan to raise 1.5 billion to 2 billion rupees ($16.07–21.42 million) through the initial share sale.
India’s more than 1,800 global capability centres have emerged as major employers of skilled workers, with over 1.9 million people working across such facilities.
In 2025, capability centres hired more than 140,000 people after accounting for attrition, Karanth said.
Xpheno facilitated hiring of more than 8,000 employees in the fiscal year ending March 31 for both global centres and Indian companies, the firm said.
Hiring for global centres is typically cyclical, with each hiring cycle lasting for two or three years, but the current cycle has lasted longer than usual, Amit Chandra, vice president at HDFC Securities, said.
Specialized staffing for global centres – that operates on a fixed-price model – has margins higher than for general staffing, Chandra said.
Larger listed peers Teamlease TLSV.NS and Quess Corp QUEC.NS reported EBITDA margins of 1.41% and 2.03%, respectively, for the quarter ended December.
“We were completely GCC-driven for the longest time. As much as it’s still a sunshine sector… we still think global headwinds can change some of those aspects,” said Karanth.
Reuters
