Little known Chicago and Bangalore-based data analytics firm Mu Sigma has pulled in $108 million (Rs 580 Cr) in funding from two premier private equity companies. The deal with General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital is one the best among the data analytical domains globally and due credits must be given to Dhiraj Rajaram, the founder of Mu Sigma in 2004. It was a dream comes true for the Mu Sigma founder, who wanted to build large analytics firm that can rival the likes of Infosys for size.  Mu Sigma focuses on areas like marketing, supply chain and risk analytics through the use of applied mathematics, business applications and technology tools. It has more than 50 Fortune 500 clients (Microsoft and Dell are among those) and employs 1500 analytics professionals.

“This is not a niche business, but a nascent business. We are still at the tip of the iceberg; there is a lot more to come,” Dhiraj, who studied computer engineering at Anna University in Chennai and spent many years as a management consultant in the US, told ET. Dhiraj was earlier a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Apart from his primary technical education in Chennai, Dhiraj went on to do, M.S. in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University and then did his MBA from the University of Chicago.

Mu Sigma said in a statement that it's already profitable and could fund its operations, but it would use the fresh funding to “accelerate its growth in the burgeoning analytics services market.” Part of the new capital would be used to buy shares back from existing shareholders, a report in Wall Street Journal said, without mentioning the exact figure.

An advice to the youngsters from the Mu sigma founder is, my contention is that business analytics can be a large standalone business; perhaps the next IT services out of India