California-headquartered Cloudera was valued at $5.3 billion in 2021 following its acquisition by private equity players, including KKR, which made it a privately held company.
“When we first went there (India) 20 years ago, the work was primarily testing. Today, we have full-fledged development teams that are an integral part of our global engineering infrastructure,” Sansbury told ET. “The centre now includes product management, engineering leadership and core development, making it one of the key engines of our organisation.”
Cloudera surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue in 2023-24.
The company has a large team in Bengaluru and is now expanding its presence in Chennai, according to Sansbury.
“On the one hand, it’s very competitive because of the talent, but on the other hand, there is so much talent that you can still build teams and develop high-quality professionals there,” he said.
Cloudera, founded in 2008, helps businesses use AI to manage and analyse all types of data, enhancing security and governance, along with enabling real-time and predictive insights.
In India, Cloudera works with several enterprises, including Reliance Industries, the Bombay Stock Exchange, Axis Bank and Yes Bank, which are adopting hybrid multi-cloud technologies to scale up and modernise business operations.
Recently, Ola’s AI venture, Krutrim, partnered with Cloudera to support large-scale analytics and data lake operations for the ride hailing company on Krutrim Cloud.
Cloudera has invested heavily in research and development, with cumulative R&D spending reaching $3-4 billion since its inception. Last year its R&D spending increased by 10-11% year-on-year, led by engineering. This year, again, the company will invest heavily in engineering, Sansbury said.
Reflecting on its string of acquisitions, including the latest one, Taikun, which helps manage Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure, Sansbury said mergers and acquisitions have been used to accelerate the R&D strategy, especially in areas where new product capabilities or specialised expertise are needed quickly.
“We weren’t buying businesses that were standalone, we were buying technology. Revenue came with it, too, but technology … we wanted to own it and control it,” he said.
In November 2024, the company acquired Octopai’s data lineage and catalogue platform, which helps organisations manage and govern their data. In June last year, it had acquired Verta’s Operational AI Platform.
(The reporter was in Singapore at the invitation of Cloudera)
