DataSeers Opening Second Office in India Amid Tech Talent War

Atlanta-based DataSeers is set to open a new office in Mumbai, adding 80 new employees this year and cutting commute times for some existing workers as it continues to fight for Indian tech talent.

Based in Alpharetta, the fintech firm’s main platform uses artificial intelligence to mine transactions for patterns, helping banks and prepaid mobile wallets like Venmo and Cash App predict fraud.

[Read more: Alpharetta to Asia: Atlanta Fintech Firm DataSeers to Accelerate Growth With India Office]

India has been key to the company’s growth, not only in delivering software solutions that power market expansion in the U.S., but as a market in its own right and a springboard into the broader Asia region.

Mumbai was a natural location, not just because it’s where CEO Adwait Joshi and his family hail from, but also because most of the largest Indian banks operate there, he told Global Atlanta. That proximity is also a core reason he didn’t go to another tech hub like Bangalore or Hyderabad, he said.

“We sell to banks, and all the banks are in Mumbai — why would you go to some different city?” he said.

Global Atlanta reported on DataSeers’s decision to go global in 2019, when it had just eight employees at a 2,000-square-foot Alpharetta office. Now it has 65 people in the United States, with plans to add 100 worldwide over the next year (including the 80 in India).

Five years ago, the company opened an office in the Navi Mumbai (New Bombay) area east across the water from the peninsula where Mumbai proper lies.

The company has since outgrown the space, but instead of opening one larger office and consolidating, the company realized it could split into two campuses and better serve its workforce, said Mr. Joshi.

A good proportion of the team, he said, was fighting traffic to cross into another municipality, so he decided to meet them where they live.

“That’s so much better than just getting space in my existing town,” he said, noting the challenge of attracting and retaining good people. “Right now the challenge is how do I attract talent.”

Unlike other tech hubs like Bangalore, to which many Indian workers have migrated from their hometowns in search of opportunities, Mr. Joshi said Mumbai residents tend to stay with their families.

“Mumbai people — born and brought up in Mumbai — they will spend the rest of their lives in Mumbai,” he said.

Living in multigenerational households, they’re reluctant to move for work and start paying rent.

“It’s like moving to New York City — it’s expensive.”

Remote work is not really an option for new employees, given the compliance and security demands of the financial industry and the hands-on training the DataSeers provides in areas like data science.

Some veteran employees have earned the right to work virtually, but more attractive to new hires has been the prospect of coming to the United States after developing into a supervisory role, usually after three years, on an L-1A visa.

DataSeers has had to scour the globe for the right people as demand for its services keeps rising amid compliance failures at fintechs and banks. In February, the Reserve Bank of India ordered Paytm, a provider of 330 million digital wallets in the country, to shut down its affiliated payments bank by the second week of March over supervisory and compliance concerns.

“If you have been following global fintech news, a lot of banks and fintechs have been getting into trouble,” Mr. Joshi said. “To be honest, other people’s mistakes and ignorance and lack of security helps me.”

DataSeers has recently brought seven “wicked smart” new team members into the U.S. from Turkey, where “there is not as much competition as there is in India,” he added.

Getting U.S. government approvals to bring in new talent was bruising at the beginning, but the rewards have been significant, Mr. Joshi said.

The bootstrapped, profitable and debt-free company is now leaning into its international culture, with eight team members from Africa, three from China, six from India and a few from Morocco and Europe. Some new hires wonder why a tech company would ask for languages spoken during the interview process, Mr. Joshi said.

“Our team is so global, and we kind of play into that,” he said. “They’re imbibing our culture.”

The company prides itself on creating jobs and keeping team members at a time when many venture-backed tech firms are laying off staff. See more on the company’s LinkedIn post about the new offices