Aurionpro : signs Strategic Investment Deal in the Smart Transport System Domain – Consolidates its market leadership in this segment

Aurionpro Solutions Pte Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Aurionpro Solutions Limited (Aurionpro), has entered into an agreement for acquisition of majority stake (51%) in SC Soft Pte. Ltd. (SC Soft) a Singapore headquartered Automated Fare Collection (AFC) and smart city solution provider. Aurionpro will make investment in tranches by subscribing to the fresh equity shares to be issued by the SC Soft and will acquire majority stake by December 2019 and will have a right to acquire balance 49% stake thereafter. Currently, Aurionpro is subscribing to 619,500 number of new equity shares issued by SC Soft which will take effective holding of Aurionpro to 26.70% of the total equity of SC Soft. The total investment for 51% will be US$ 5mn. The investments by Aurionpro will be used to expand R&D capabilities and ramp up global sales of SC Soft.

SC Soft, founded in 2009 and headquartered in Singapore, has established product offering for AFC based on the open loop technology. It has successfully implemented Automated Fare Collection Systems in the select markets for various mass transport systems across Asia, Russia and Mexico. Having offices in Singapore, Canada, Malaysia and India and with a team of more than hundred people globally and significant investments in R&D, SC Soft is one of the few global players to have end to end open loop solution in a market where most established players as well as operators work on close loop systems. Additionally, SC Soft has a strong team which focus on smart city solutions across Asia region.

Since, Aurionpro is an established player in mobility business and has won Maha Metro - Nagpur and Noida Metro, to provide Automated Fare Collection (AFC) system based on an open loop technology, the acquisition will attract synergies in terms of offerings and execution. In both these projects Aurionpro is in consortium with the State Bank of India (SBI) and SC Soft. Further, Aurionpro is participating in other mobility businesses across India and will further expand its reach in the global markets.

Automated Fare Collection Systems market has high growth potential driven by contactless payment solutions and smart phones. AFC is estimated to reach US$ 10.1 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 13.2% between 2016 and 2022 (Source: Allied Market Research, May 2016). The Asia Pacific market is expected to be one of the fastest growing markets in terms of value, growing at a CAGR of 14.5% between 2016-2022 (Source: 'World Automated Fare Collection System Market' Allied Market Research, May 2016). In India as well, many state governments have undertaken projects to build metro railways to improve transport systems for commuters in metro cities and urban areas and also upgrade the bus transport systems for inter-state as well as intra-state transport.

Aurionpro with its reach across multiple geographies, expertise in implementing AFC Solutions, deep domain knowledge of payments systems and its ACE platform will be able to offer cloud based open loop solution making it only Indian player with end to end capabilities for executing the same. The strategic investment by Aurionpro in SC Soft will further strengthen its offerings and leadership in the AFC Segment.

Paresh Zaveri, CMD Aurionpro said 'SC soft has been our partner in executing Noida and Nagpur projects. They bring in world class capabilities, experience and thought leadership in the AFC domain. The acquisition of SC Soft will be a strategic milestone as it will help Aurionpro strengthen its leadership in the rapidly growing AFC Market as it will establish Aurionpro as a one stop shop having necessary end to end hardware and software required for the implementation of the AFC Systems.'