Infosys, one of the largest Indian multi national company which provides business consultancy and IT services, has partnered with Palo-Alto based venture capital firm Vertex Ventures to boost its access to startups which are working on disruptive technologies.
This move from Infosys Innovation Fund, which has around $500 million under management, puts it in a league of some of the biggest companies such as Google. These major companies have also tied up with many venture capital firms to find the next big thing to disrupt the market.
Vertex Ventures was funded earlier this year by Jonathan Heiliger and In Sik Rhee. Jonathan Heiliger is a former executive of Facebook while In Sik Rhee is a former executive of Accel Partners.
The VC firm has raised $141 million from 41 investors. With this fund, the firm aims to back start-ups in the category of Information and Technology, ranging from cloud computing to cyber security.
Vertex Ventures has already invested in four early-stage start-ups, including California-based storage start-up Hedvig, and PerimeterX, and Silicon Valley-based start-ups focused on cloud security.
An Infosys spokeswoman has confirmed the investment made by the company in Vertex Ventures without revealed the financial details to LiveMint. An executive familiar to this matter, said, to LiveMint:
Our strategy of partnering with a VC is something which other corporate ventures of technology firms too have followed. It helps us quickly reach the scale we eventually aspire to as it is challenging for any one firm to find the most innovative start-ups. This approach helps us maximize the new-age technologies being worked by different start-ups to some of our clients.
Infosys is open to partnering with other venture capital firms too, given that their portfolio is interesting and are active in geographies where the company is interested in investing.
Since Vishal Sikka took over Infosys’ top role, he set aside $100 million for Infosys Innovation Fund, which was later increased to $500 million. But, Infosys is not the only India MNC which is engaging with startups. Wipro has also a team based in Bay area and has invested in four start-ups so far.
