Wipro Ventures, the $100-million strategic investment arm of IT services major Wipro Ltd, has invested an undisclosed sum in California-based app testing platform HeadSpin Inc.
The investment firm has also picked a minority stake in the company, a spokesperson from Wipro said without divulging further details about the investment ticket size.
“HeadSpin provides a mobile application performance management platform that enables quality engineering on global mobile networks and allows for remote testing on real devices on real networks across the globe. This platform will augment Wipro's mobile testing and quality assurance services,†the spokesperson added in an e-mailed response.
HeadSpin, which is one of Wipro Ventures’ portfolio companies, did not respond to email queries sent by VCCircle, seeking confirmation on the investment.
Financial daily Mint, which first reported the development, stated that this was the venture firm’s 13th investment since its launch.
HeadSpin was founded in 2015 by Indian-origin entrepreneur Manish Lachwani and Brien Colwell. The company’s platform allows users to test mobile applications and websites on global mobile networks and also tests and monitors performance using devices connected to local wireless carriers.
Accordingly, the company’s products find and fix bugs and also provide real-time visibility into the consumer experience. The company’s distributed mobile device platform enables remote testing and monitoring from around the globe in 140 cities across 80 countries, according to information available on its website.
In India, HeadSpin has labs in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi, the Mint report stated.
Lachwani, who is also the CEO of the startup, was earlier with the engineering division of Google after his previous venture Appurify was acquired by the tech giant in June 2014. Before venturing on his own, he worked at Zynga and Amazon’s Lab 126, its special consumer projects division that designed and developed products that include Kindle, Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Echo, its smart speaker. Colwell, the firm’s chief technology officer, is a UC Berkeley University alumnus and has previously worked at question-and-answer site Quora and software services firm Palantir, among others.
Wipro Ventures, which was launched in September 2014, primarily invests in early to mid-stage startups in emerging technologies in the India, Israel and the US. It typically puts in anywhere between $ 1-10 million in a single round, depending on the stage of the investment.
Its focus areas include fin-tech, healthcare IT and the broad enterprise software sector with a specific focus on domains such as artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, cloud infrastructure, Internet of Things, and security, according to information available on its website.
Wipro Ventures, which is overseen by Rishad Premji along with a core investment and advisory team, has made about 10 of its 13 investments in US-based startups, Mint reported.
In February 2016, it led a $4 million Series-A round (around Rs 27.2 crore then) in Pune-based Altizon Systems Pvt Ltd, which operates a technology platform for developing industrial IoT solutions, along with Lumis Partners. Its other investments include US-based cybersecurity company Vectra Networks, robotics startup Vicarious, and risk and fraud prevention firm Emailage Corporation.
