Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal, co-founders of Indian software giant Infosys, have joined hands with Srinath Batni, a company veteran, to launch a tech startup incubator called Axilor Ventures.
Axilor will incubate startups operating in the e-commerce, healthcare, life sciences, sustainability and clean technology spaces, it said in a statement.
Axilor will focus on scalable, disruptive and technology-led business ideas from budding entrepreneurs and experienced professionals. The first batch of the programme is scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2015.
It will also invest between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 6 crore ($50,000 and $1 million) each in startups.
V Ganapathy Subramanian, former head (strategy and planning) at Infosys, is CEO of Axilor.
Axilor’s founding team also includes Tarun Khanna, professor at the Harvard Business School; and Ganapathy Venugopal, former head of strategy & planning at Infosys.
This is not the first time Infosys veterans are launching an early stage investment platform. Last year, former Infosys executives V Balakrishnan and TV Mohandas Pai, along with a few other IT bigwigs, launched an early-stage VC fund called Reservoir Investment Managers. The fund made the final close of its maiden fund Exfinity Technology Fund – Series I (ETF-I) at Rs 125 crore (around $20 million) in August this year.
Infy founders also run their own private investment vehicles including Catamaran Ventures (NR Narayana Murthy) and Nadathur Holdings (NS Raghavan). Nadathur is also sponsor of another VC firm Ojas Ventures.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
