In the recessionary climate of 2009, when jobs were hard to come by, Aniketh Jain and Ashish Agarwal decided to start their own company. “We had graduated, but placements were nowhere in sight. We couldn’t have just kept waiting,” says 27-year-old Jain. The idea of founding a company specialising in communication services was a result of a college project that Jain and Agarwal executed as students at Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College of Engineering, Bengaluru. Their college attendance management project looked at solving the problem of students missing classes. The technology allowed for text messages to be sent in bulk to parents of students not attending classes. While the project surely didn’t win them brownie points with fellow students, it sowed the seeds for what has become one of the fastest growing tech companies in the country. Solutions Infini, the messaging and cloud telephony services company started by Jain and Agarwal was rated the sixth fastest growing technoloy company in India by Deloitte in 2014. This Bengaluru-based company offers messaging and voice communication solutions to clients across industries, helping them transact and promote their businesses. It is highly likely that the text message you receive after withdrawing money from an ATM is powered by Infini technology.

To set up Solutions Infini, Jain and Agarwal borrowed close to Rs 4 lakh from their friends and family. But founding the company was a challenge for these computer application graduates. “There were just too many procedures. Too many rules. Too many agencies to deal with. It was exhausting,” says Jain, Co-founder and CEO. “The SMS and communications industry is bound by a lot of government regulations and guidelines. Regulatory compliance has been a key challenge for us,” adds 28-year-old Agarwal, Co-founder and CTO. However, the founders not only overcame the hurdles, they even delivered big in the very first year of operations. Revenue for 2009-10 stood at close to Rs 75 lakh.

Today, the company’s list of more than 5,000 clients includes Jabong, Myntra, Bank of Baroda, Syndicate Bank, Vijaya Bank, Foodpanda, Just Dial and Yatra. “Our first client was a local light fixtures company. We earned Rs 2,000 for our services,” recalls Jain.

Solutions Infini has come a long way from that first paycheque. Its 2014-15 revenue stood at Rs 58 crore. From a small office in Bengaluru, it has expanded to Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Chennai and Dubai. It is planning to set up base in Singapore and the UK in the next six months. But growth has meant management challenges.

“We faced operational issues with departments finding it difficult to be in-sync with each other. We have ensured that there is constant communication between them so that everybody is on the same page,” says Jain. “We also had trouble building the second rung leadership. But we handled it by investing in training and skill development programmes,” adds Agarwal.

From a team of two, the company has grown to 110 employees, several of whom are from the founders’ alma mater. Not a bad way for Jain and Agarwal to atone for the chiding their fellow students must have got, courtesy their class project.

Read the original coverage at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/ashish-agarwal-and-aniketh-jains-tech-startup-solutions-infini-rakes-in-rs-58-crore-in-2014-15/articleshow/46887753.cms