K Jagan Mohan Rao, director of VTL said that in the next two years the company will be investing to the tune of about Rs 15 crore in capacity expansion, strengthening its US arm and developing state-of-the-art infrastructure for research and development in the new niche areas like life sciences contract research, pharma etc.
The bio-technology projects will be done through its fully owned subsidiary Virinchi Bio VirinchiBio Ltd. Rao said that the current head count of VTL is 150, which will be doubled in the next few months and in the next one year it will cross 1,000 people.
To accommodate the expanding staff the company has decided to construct its own campus at Shamirpet, which will also house an R&D centre. Rao said that the company will be investing about Rs 6 crore for construction of this campus, which is expected to be ready in the next one year.
As for overseas expansion, Rao said that the company will be opening a branch in the US as a fully owned subsidiary in the name of Virinchi Product Design and Development Services Inc, a branch in Switzerland called Virinchi Technologies Ltd and yet another in Hong Kong as a fully owned subsidiary in the name of the Virinchi Technologies Ltd.
According to Rao the US arm will focus on development in aviation and automotive sectors. In the next one year to 15 months the company is aiming at sales of about $ 1.5 million from the US operations. The company plans to invest about Rs 2 crore in strengthening the US arm.
VTL’s US operations are currently developing technology services to Italian railways using computer-aided engineering (CAE) & designing. As of now, no Indian company offers services in CAE and VTL will be the first company to venture into this niche segment.
Rao said that the expansion projects will be financed through a mix of internal accruals and term loans and added that the company could also come out with a rights issue to raise fresh capital.
