Software developer Ephesoft Inc. says its fastest-growing market is Southeast Asia, demonstrated by its recently announced deal with Alliance Bank of Malaysia.
“Southeast Asia has been the fastest-growing region for us,” founder and CEO Ike Kavas told the Business Journal.
“They are still third behind America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), but they are growing the fastest.”
Alliance Bank of Malaysia uses Irvine-based Ephesoft’s software to help automate the financial institution’s document handling. Ephesoft’s Transact product bulk-scans supporting documents and recategorizes them digitally within the bank’s credit automation system, using machine-learning algorithms.
Ephesoft says its machine learning-powered software lets bank “accelerate tedious processes” to improve efficiency.
Singapore Team
“When Alliance Bank from Malaysia was looking for technologies, we already had a team right next door in Singapore,” Kavas said. “We went there and we showed them our technology and I think they fell in love with it.”
The agreement will be a “multi-million dollar deal over the next several years,” he said, without specifying numbers.
“We generally connect with our clients through partners,” Kavas said. “In Singapore, we started to partner with global consultancies like Ernst & Young, PwC and Deloitte. So, in the Asia-Pacific region, we are already working with those organizations to provide our technology to their clients.”
“The Singapore-based team, using these partners, can actually reach all the way to India. I think we recently got three or four deals from India as well through our partners there,” according to Kavas.
50 Countries
The same pattern is followed in other regions, too. Ephesoft already counts Singapore’s second-largest bank among its customers.
Kavas founded privately held Ephesoft in 2010 and the company had more than 160 companywide employees as of October, with offices in Sydney, Singapore, London, Frankfurt, New Delhi, and Boise, Idaho in addition to Irvine. It has customers in more than 50 countries. The U.S. is its biggest market.
It ranked No. 17 on this year’s Business Journal’s list of Best Places to Work among OC midsize companies.
Kavas declined to provide revenue, but previously said the company passed the $20 million mark a few years ago. He says 2019 will clock growth of up to 40% with further expansion next year.
“We’re one of the fastest-growing companies in Orange County,” according to Kavas. “And one of the most innovative ones as well. Ephesoft is tirelessly working on new technologies.”
“We’ve just recently developed some cool new things with our machine-learning engine,” he said.
“In January, we’re going to have a new release of our product with more machine learning-based functionalities.”
