Information technology giant Infosys Ltd has invested in Silicon Valley-based early stage venture capital firm Vertex Ventures' (not the same as Temasek's VC arm that also operates under a similar name) fund as part of its startup investment programme, as per its website.
This is the fourth known investment by Infosys out of its $500 million corpus created to invest in startups around the world. Half of this corpus is to be used to back Indian startups while the rest is for international ventures.
Infosys spokesperson did not respond to an email query by VCCircle on whether this represents a limited partner commitment to Vertex's fund.
Mint that first reported the development, termed it as a partnership between Infosys and Vertex to back startups.
Infosys' Innovation Fund has previously invested in cleantech startup Airviz, strategy and implementation services provider ANSR Consulting and Nova, which is a spin-off from DreamWorks Animation, an animation technology and animation film producer.
Infosys' Innovation Fund is overseen by Yusuf Bashir, a former SAP colleague of Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys. The fund's corpus was increased five times to $500 million early this year and it is looking to invest not only in India and the US but also in other geographies.
Vertex Ventures was set up by former Facebook executive Jonathan Heiliger and former Accel Partners' executive In Sik Rhee earlier this year. The VC firm has raised $141 million from 41 investors to back startups in the enterprise and cloud computing field.
