P. Venkatesh and Maveric Systems: The $75M ARR Banking Specialist Racing Toward IPO
How a 25-year focus on banking unitization built a Chennai-based company targeting $500M revenue and public markets within three years
In 2000, while most entrepreneurs chased the dot-com gold rush, four friends in Chennai made a different bet. They would build a testing company focused exclusively on banking, betting that financial services would undergo massive technological transformation in the decades ahead.
Twenty-five years later, that contrarian decision has produced Maveric Systems, a $75 million revenue company with 2,200+ employees across three continents, now preparing for an IPO.
The architect of this patient capital approach is P. Venkatesh, Director, Maveric Systems. In a recent conversation on the Founder Thesis podcast, PV shared the strategic principles that built one of India’s most focused banking technology companies and his predictions for how AI and unitization will reshape financial services.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights
The Unitization Thesis That Defined a Company
Long before crypto enthusiasts discovered “fractional ownership,” PV identified what he calls “unitization” as banking’s most important secular trend.
There is a drive towards making the entire set of asset classes which was available to the ultra-rich, available to these smaller investors too or retail investors too. That’s what I was referring to as the unitization where the values are being made smaller so that it can attract the retail investors into those asset classes.
This insight shaped Maveric’s entire trajectory. PV traces unitization from mutual funds democratizing stock market access in the 1990s, to REITs opening commercial real estate to retail investors, to today’s blockchain-enabled fractional ownership of everything from houses to NFTs.
The trend explains why Maveric chose to specialize. As banking products became more accessible to retail investors, banks needed specialized technology partners who understood both legacy systems and emerging digital assets.
Building for the Long Game: Three Core Principles
While Silicon Valley celebrated “move fast and break things,” Maveric took the opposite approach. The company’s three core principles, refined over two and a half decades, offer lessons for anyone building in regulated industries.
Principle 1: Belief Over Trends
Your belief is more important than anything else. When we started, neither focusing on a single vertical nor focusing on a service like testing were popular. But nevertheless, we knew until and unless you build a speciality, you will never be able to find your way in.
This conviction proved prescient. Today, Maveric’s 25 years of banking-only focus gives it competitive advantages that generalist consulting firms can’t match.
Principle 2: Team Depth Over Speed
Four of Maveric’s founders remain with the company today. PV credits this stability to recognizing that complex problems require “plural minds.”
Always if you have instead of one or two members, a broad profile of people who can actually contribute to because when you are building that journey, you need plural minds to come in with their approaches for you to pick the right one and to move on.
Principle 3: Customer Quality Over Revenue Quantity
Maveric prioritized customer quality from day one, even when it meant slower revenue growth. Today, 80% of the company’s revenue comes from just 20% of its customers, with many relationships spanning over a decade.
If you place revenue over the quality of your customers and if you place numbers over the quality of the team that you are building in, then you are only aggregating problems from the beginning.
For 20 of Maveric’s 25 years, the company grew without a sales team, relying entirely on referrals and expanded relationships with existing clients.
The AI Revolution: From Documents to Decisions
Banking institutions generate staggering amounts of complex documentation. Corporate lending agreements run 500-600 pages. PV sees AI transforming three core areas of banking operations.
Document Intelligence
Banking across the globe, irrespective of which part of the world it is, they deal with lot of documents and those documents are really voluminous. If you look at any corporate lending agreements, it will be 500, 600 pages in place.
GenAI platforms now allow banks to query these massive document sets conversationally, extracting insights that previously required armies of analysts.
Application Integration
Most banks operate 100 to 1,000+ applications across their technology landscape. AI now enables real-time querying across distributed applications, breaking down information silos that have persisted for decades.
Model Enhancement
Banks have always used models for customer segmentation, risk assessment, and credit decisions. AI dramatically expands both the data these models can process and the sophistication of their analysis.
Importantly, PV distinguishes between AI adoption patterns. Technology companies are moving toward “AI-native” development, where AI agents handle most coding. Banks prefer “AI-enabled” development, where AI assists human developers but humans retain control over critical decisions.
This caution reflects banking’s zero-tolerance approach to system failures.
We are dealing with large banks which have zero tolerance towards IT/software led glitches or issues.
The DeFi Paradox: Why Banks Will Win
The rise of decentralized finance has sparked debate about whether banking faces a “bankless future.” PV’s analysis suggests otherwise.
The moment these regulators start accepting the digital assets as safe and permissible instruments or asset classes for the financial institutions to deal with, sooner or later retail investors will be replaced by institutional investors coming through the banks.
He draws parallels to traditional market infrastructure evolution. Exchanges provide trading platforms, but banks dominate both the buy side and sell side of transactions. PV predicts similar patterns will emerge in crypto markets as regulatory clarity develops.
Racing Toward An IPO
Maveric’s financial trajectory reflects both its specialized positioning and the broader growth in banking technology spending. The company is at an ARR of ~$75 million in revenue for fiscal year 2025.
Growth Metrics:
Current ARR: $75 million
4-year target: $200 million
Ultimate goal: $500 million revenue
Employee count: 2,200+ across 8 global delivery centers
Client concentration: 80% revenue from top 20% of customers
CEO Ranga Reddy has indicated Maveric will pursue an Indian IPO within 2-3 years, floating 20-30% of the company. The company is planning strategic acquisitions, including two US deals and one Indian acquisition in the $5-15 million range.
Maveric targets partnerships with four of the world’s top 10 global banks, aiming to convert at least two into clients over the next 24 months.
Services vs. Products: Why Integration Wins
One key strategic decision shaped Maveric’s entire business model: choosing services over products. While companies like Infosys built software platforms, Maveric focused on helping banks integrate and optimize existing technologies.
Any mid-sized bank will have thousand plus products in their tech landscape. They need a services firm to integrate them, manage them, making sure that the features are harnessed well in order to suit their purpose.
This choice reflects PV’s understanding of banking’s unique complexity. Banks need partners who understand how to make hundreds of different systems work together while maintaining regulatory compliance and operational stability.
The services approach also creates stronger customer relationships. Rather than selling software licenses, Maveric embeds with banking clients for multi-year transformation programs, building institutional knowledge that becomes increasingly valuable over time.
The Patient Path Forward
As Maveric prepares for its next phase, PV’s approach offers lessons for entrepreneurs building in complex, regulated industries. The company’s 25-year journey from Chennai testing startup to IPO-bound specialist demonstrates that patience and focus can create sustainable competitive advantages.
The banking industry’s ongoing transformation, driven by AI adoption and continued unitization of financial products, positions Maveric at the center of massive technology spending. As PV predicted decades ago, making complex financial products accessible to retail investors requires sophisticated technology infrastructure.
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