Wipro to Join Forces With Big Data Firm

Hughes Hubbard & Reed helped Wipro, a leading global information technology, consulting and outsourcing company, ink a deal to acquire a minority stake in Opera Solutions, a global big data analytics company, for approximately $30 million. The deal was announced May 7.
 
“This strategic partnership with Opera Solutions will help us further extend our leadership in the big data analytics space, as it combines Opera Solutions’ machine learning expertise, pre-discovered predictive signals and algorithms with Wipro’s domain and technology expertise to create industry-specific big data analytics solutions,” said K.R. Sanjiv, global head of analytics and information management at Wipro.
 
Opera Solutions, founded in 2004 and headquartered in New Jersey, includes approximately 200 machine-learning scientists among its 700 employees, one of the largest such groups in private industry. Very few firms possess machine-learning capabilities (the ability of a machine to learn from repeated tasks), which frees up people for more high-value tasks.
 
Wipro, headquartered in Bangalore, has more than 140 thousand employees and clients across 54 countries.
 
The deal commanded headlines in The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Indian newspapers and other outlets.
 
Ken Lefkowitz, Chuck Samuelson, Spencer Harrison and Andy Braiterman worked on this deal.