BENGALURU: InfosysBSE 1.25 % said it is investing Rs 31.6 crore in the maiden fund of Stellaris Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital fund focussed on backing technology startups in the country. The deal is the first investment by Infosys in a local venture capital fund and will help Stellaris reach a first close for its fund.
ET was the first to report, that Infosys was in talks to invest in Stellaris. The investment has been made through Infosys’ $500 million Innovation Fund, which has previously backed Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm Vertex Ventures.
“India’s startup ecosystem is witnessing rapid growth led by areas such as cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and big data, as well as the widespread proliferation of smartphones,” Infosys said in a statement.
“Stellaris aims to back entrepreneurs building applications for global businesses,SMBs, and consumers in verticals such as financial service ces, retail, healthcare, and education.” Stellaris has been set up by Alok Goyal, Rahul Chowdhri and Ritesh Banglani, former partners at Helion Venture Partners. They quit in December 2015 to start Stellaris and were on the road to raise a fund of about $100 million.
“India has a vibrant technology startup ecosystem today that has the potential to create breakthrough companies on a global scale. We are very excited to partner with Infosys, whose deep technology expertise, understanding of global enterprises, and worldwide footprint can be immensely valuable to the investment team as well as Stellaris’ portfolio companies,” said Goyal, an SAP veteran who quit as chief operating officer of the German software maker’s Indian unit in 2013 to join Helion.
Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka was an executive board member at SAP, where he worked for over a decade before joining Infosys in 2014.
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Source: Economic Times
