Letter to my colleagues

May 20, 2024

Dear colleague, 

You may have seen from the financial results for the year ended March 31, 2024 that IRIS is now in the 100 crore club. Also, in 2024, IRIS completes 20 years in business.  Next Saturday, we will celebrate both milestones, with staff and ex staff,  and friends.  You must come with family.  We have invited all of our service providers and everyone who has helped us come this far.

You may wonder if the achievement of 100 crore in revenue is such a big deal for it warrant any hoopla. What is so great about  completion of 20 years, you might ask. Both are huge milestones in the history of IRIS. Allow me to explain why.  

I am not embarrassed that it has taken us 20 years to get to Rs 102 crores. Someone drew a parallel with Sunil Gavaskar's 36 not out in 60 over at the 1975 Cricket world cup. I can live with a Gavaskar comparison. Because, by the time he retired, Gavaskar had scored over 10000 runs in 125 matches at an average of over 50 runs per inning over a 16 year career. Fantastic stats that. 

At IRIS, we have laid the foundation to launch the next phase of our growth. With a mere Rs 23.5 crore of external funding, including the Rs 16 crore IPO, we have come this far. Today a Series A round is seldom less than twice that amount. I cant think of many companies that have done as much as we have with as little. So if we took 20 years to get to Rs 100 cr, so what. We are still standing, aren't we? We make a difference to the lives of over 2 billion people. सोचने से चक्कर आता है | Knowing that we have served over 6000 enterprise clients across 52+ countries gives me a heady feeling.  No hyperbole this. 

Those who have been with us for long know that as recently as 7 years ago, we were on the brink. Since then we have grown our business fourfold and profitably.  I am over the moon with how much we have achieved.  And with so little. 

To amuse myself, I thought I would see how we compare with other listed Indian companies. Data on www.screener.in tells me that 2324 listed companies have a higher turnover than us. That is half of India's listed universe. Of these,1654 companies turned in a Profit after tax higher than us. When I add return on equity into the mix, I am left with just 451 companies. If I add balance sheet parameters and compare these 451 companies ahead of us, we look even better. If I consider leveraging by looking at the debt equity ratio, I am left with just 194 companies. And finally, when we factor in Current ratio, I discovered that the number of companies which beat us on all of these metrics is just 134.   And to think that we are just getting started. 

i don't aspire for IRIS to be the world's or even India's biggest company, but I do want us to be cherished by investors.  I do want our products to be sought after by discerning clients. Our products are Made in India for the world and i want us to make our country proud with best of breed world class offerings that can compete on the world stage and hold their own against anybody. The Rs 100 crore mark is an opportunity to pause and reflect and to return refreshed with renewed vigour.  

Let me turn now to the 20 year milestone. Independent studies show that the survival rate of new firms after six years is around 40%.  If you are going to fail, it is best that you fail early, venture capitalists will tell you.  We could have shut shop a long time ago. But we chose to stick it out. The work we were doing and continue to do is too important for us to consider any other option. As Founders we took pay cuts and pay deferrals. Many of you made sacrifices. We stayed on, knowing that just as good times don't last for ever, bad times too don't last for ever.   

What does the future hold for all of us at IRIS ? I am hugely optimistic. we will grow by selling more and selling to more.  Today, our flag flies high in some 52 countries leaving another 141 for us to enter. We serve over 6000 enterprises, that needs to increase that manifold. We need to deepen the relationship with each of our customers, be they regulators or the regulated. 

Every successful business has a purpose. Ours is to create a safer and healthier environment for legitimate money to move freely, safely, securely, respecting country laws. The calling we answer to is to make the world a more transparent place for business to operate in efficiently. 
Our vision is grandiose. IRIS is 4 businesses rolled into one, feeding off one another.  Each of the businesses is a multi billion dollar opportunity and we have not even begin scratching the surface.

We still don't have sufficient resources to execute on our vision. But I am confident that we will be able to attract primary capital given how far we have reached and given how efficiently we deploy capital. 

Our next  company wide celebration should be when we cross Rs 500 cr in revenues. I hope we can get there before Balu, Deepta and I move on.  

Thank you for your attention

Swaminathan