Software quality engineering company Tricentis has opened an office in Dubai as the Austin, Texas-based firm is pushing into the Middle East market, with an expansion into Saudi Arabia planned for 2025, the company said.
The focus on a new region comes only weeks after US private equity firm GTCR agreed to invest $1.33 billion in Tricentis, which provides software testing automation and software quality assurance products to dozens of banks around the world.
The opening of the Dubai office comes as Tricentis’ client base is rapidly expanding in the Middle East, with Bank Albilad and Alshaya Group both having integrated the company’s codeless testing solutions into their digital infrastructure.
“This investment into the Middle East aligns with Tricentis’ long-term growth strategy for the region, with further expansion into Saudi Arabia planned for the coming year,” the company wrote in an email to QA Financial.
Tricentis said it is taking “a partner-led go-to-market strategy” for the region, thereby teaming up with companies including SAP, Accenture, Capgemini, DXC Technology, IBM, LTI Mindtree, NTT DATA Business Solutions and Wipro, as well as a range of local players, such as Master Works-owned Adre, Q-Pros, TestCrew and TTC Global.
The new office in Dubai will be led by Dan Melville, who has been appointed as Vice President of Middle East and North Africa (MENA). He will lead the expansion of the local team.
“The Middle East is undergoing rapid growth, with economic diversification driving a dynamic shift toward digital transformation and emerging technologies like AI.”
– Dan Melville
“Software testing, if not done correctly, is a common cause of delay to transformation projects, and CIOs and IT executives in the region are recognizing they can no longer rely on legacy, manual approaches to achieve high quality software,” he added.
Tricentis is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with 26 offices globally. In 2023, Tricentis generated around $330 million in annual recurring revenue, and claims to have increased the number of new customers by almost 60% year over year.
The company’s AI-based continuous testing platform has seen several developments in the past year, including the introduction of generative AI-powered Copilot solutions for its products Tricentis Testim, Tricentis Tosca, and Tricentis qTest.
Cash injection
The launch of a Dubai hub comes only weeks after Tricentis confirmed that private equity firm GTCR has agreed to invest $1.33 billion in the business.
The agreement, which valued Tricentis at a record $4.5 billion, was approved by its majority shareholder, software investor Insight Partners, as well as Tricentis’ board following a review of strategic alternatives, the firm said at the end of November.
Under the deal, Insight Partners and Chicago-based GTCR agreed to work together with equal representation on the board of directors.
Mark Anderson, managing director and head of technology, media and telecommunications at GTCR, said his firm agreed to the record investment since “Tricentis has established itself as a leader in software quality testing through its product suite and the value it provides.”
Founded in 1980, GTCR is a private equity firm that is focused on investing in companies in financial services, business, and technology.
Since its inception, the firm claims to have invested more than $25 billion in over 280 companies. The investor is based in Chicago with offices in New York and West Palm Beach.
Tricentis chief executive officer Kevin Thomson echoed Anderson’s sentiment by saying that the “investment simply recognises the company, product portfolio and market opportunity that we have created here at Tricentis.”
Tricentis was founded in 2007 in Vienna by Franz Fuchsberger and Wolfgang, with Insight Partners taking majority ownership in 2017.
Deal rumours
The capital allocation came as rumours about a potential sale of the company continued to hit the market in recent months.
Investment firm Insight Partners was reportedly considering selling Tricentis in a deal that valued the company at up to $4 billion. Last month’s investment slapped a value on Tricentis that is even $500 million more.
In September, Insight Partners instructed Evercore to source for potential candidates to take over Tricentis, generally considered as one of the biggest players in AI-powered automated software testing.
Analysts said at the time that the firm, which has around 2,500 clients worldwide, including a range of banks and financial services firms, could change hands for close to $4 billion. The firm has revenues of around $450 million and close to $86 million in EBITDA.
The deal rumours took off only shortly after the firm bought SeaLights, a SaaS-based, software quality intelligence platform.
The latest acquisition added to a hyperactive year for the Texas-based QA multinational, with various product launches, multiple acquisitions and a recent strategic partnership in 2024 alone.
At the same time, under CEO Kevin Thompson, the company has set out ambitious plans to push further into the US market.
SeaLights, which was founded in 2015, provides a host of large banks, financial services firms and insurance players with metrics, traceability, tests and insights meet quality gates and deliver software.
The firm uses agents to map code to tests and evaluate code that has changed, turning to machine learning (ML) to identify quality risks during software releases.
This shift-left capability enables software development teams to focus on the minimum number of functional tests, thereby saving time and speeding up their release delivery.
This was one of the main reasons why SeaLights stands out and got the attention from Tricentis CEO Thompson.
He explained that “the additional capabilities of SeaLights further extend the dominance of our comprehensive quality intelligence solutions to a wide array of applications and environments.”
Thomspon claimed his firm can now provide customers with AI-enabled quality intelligence beyond SAP environments and into both custom and packaged applications.
This includes test impact analysis, quality risk management, root cause analysis, and support across all programming languages.
The deal was Tricentis’ second acquisition in the past twelve months, following the purchase of Waldo in July 2023.
Financial details of that transaction had not been disclosed but the takeover was valued at around $150 million.
TOMORROW
QA FINANCIAL FORUM LONDON: RECAP
Last month, on September 11, QA Financial held the London conference of the QA Financial Forum, a global series of conference and networking meetings for software risk managers.
The agenda was designed to meet the needs of software testers working for banks and other financial firms working in regulated, complex markets.
Please check our special post-conference flipbook by clicking here.
READ MORE
- Cognizant drags rival Infosys to court over trade secrets
- Testaify claims tool is ‘100x faster than seasoned QA architect’
- Fast-growing Newgen sets sights on banks in Middle East
- ABN Amro hires nCino and CBA for digital upgrade
- QAFF London: Lloyds’ Richard Bishop on the rise of ‘green software’
Become a QA Financial subscriber – for FREE
* Receive our weekly newsletter * Priority invitations to our Forum events
