StackNexus has had its biggest revenue growth ever over the past three years. The rate was 1,260%, specifically, putting the Clifton Park company at No. 490 in its first time on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies.
“Things have changed quite drastically, but for the better,” said Suman Akula, founder and CEO of StackNexus, a Salesforce partner founded in 2017 that builds applications for public sector clients.
Akula expects the same growth, or up 1,400%, in the next three years. He declined to share specific revenue numbers but said he has a goal of reaching 1,000 employees by the end of 2023 or in 2024.
Growth has included the acquisition of IT company Vidruma Technologies in the UK, which Akula says has been the doorway to the company’s entrance in the European market.
StackNexus also got a boost from a contract with the California Office of Emergency Services to make software – completed in three days – used to distribute $2.4 billion in federal personal protective equipment money during the pandemic.
“Covid, I think, has given us an opportunity, in a weird sense, where we were able to add value to our customers,” Akula said.
StackNexus now has more than 300 employees worldwide, including nearly 70 in the Albany region. While Akula plans to focus next year on continuing to grow in the United Kingdom and India, he expects to add at least 20 in the Capital Region.
“That would be at the very, very lower end," he added.
While Akula says the UK is going through a bit of a slump post-Brexit, he believes it’s a growing market.
Akula says his company was founded with a focus to help clients implement technology in a matter of weeks and months, not years, so they can get the most value for their investments as soon as possible. That’s the approach he plans to take in the UK as well.
“Technology is an accelerator. We want to prove that technology is an accelerator,” Akula said. “In today's day, [return on investment] I think is a little bit redundant; time to ROI is what really matters.”
Akula came to the Albany area in 1999 for his career at GE Power & Water. He was an Albany Business Review 40 Under 40 winner in 2016. He exited his previous company, sCube, in 2017 to start StackNexus. The company ended its lease at the NYBizLab in Schenectady after the pandemic hit, recently moving its headquarters into a 2,500-square-foot space in the office building owned by DCG Development at 5 Maxwell Dr. in Clifton Park.
Besides having lived here for so long, there are a couple of reasons Akula has kept StackNexus based in the Albany region, he said.
For one, he says the local government has been very supportive, particularly Schenectady.
“We work with Mayor McCarthy very closely.”
A major reason is the level of talent coming out of colleges like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the SUNY schools, he said.
Whenever he hears someone say that the Capital Region lacks talent, he tells them that’s wrong: “I always say the talent is there, you're just not able to identify them.”
Akula plans to start an angel investment fund in the next couple of years as another way to invest in that talent, he added.
