Having raised Rs 108 crore through a preferential issue of shares, scientific and engineering software products company Cranes Software International is now looking at addressing enterprise space and add significant service delivery capabilities.

Cranes, which entered the packaged software space with a series of acquisitions, will address the enterprise space through enterprise portfolio management solution InventXePM, a product which it acquired sales and marketing rights of from US-based InventX.

"In the last 15 months we have more than doubled our headcount to 454. We will continue to hire at this pace and 20 per cent of the growth in headcount will be for our services business," Cranes President Richard H Gall said.

The company will be hiring another 40-60 people for implementing InventXePM. "Overall it will invest around six million dollars to build capabilities around InvestXePM," he said.

Cranes, which started operations in 1991, entered the software space in 2000 through acquisition of some products from US-based SYSTAT. In the last five years its portfolio has grown to 10 products with all of them coming through acquisitions. The company's engineers continue to build on these products.

All these products are sold as packaged products. With the acquisition of InventXePM it has entered the enterprise space.

To enter the services space, Cranes is building solutions around its existing products.

Apart from addressing the scientific and engineering space, Cranes is also looking at entering verticals like banking, insurance, retail, pharma and energy through its product line.

"With our products, we are targeting the research departments of these verticals," Gall said.

He said that the company is also looking at more joint ventures and acquisitions. "These acquisitions would be of the products that help expand our presence in enterprise space," he added.