500 Startups will launch Fund IV.
By Sreekanth A Nair
Infosys is planning to invest in the Silicon Valley venture capital company 500 Startups.
500 Startups is going to create their fourth global flagship fund, Fund IV, and Infosys is in talks with the firm to invest in the fund, reported The Times of India.
The venture capital firm, which has $200 million assets under its management, is supported by Dave McClure.
Some companies under the 500 Startups have seen good deals – 3D printing company Makerbot Industries was acquired by Stratasys for $400 million and social media marketing company Wildfire was acquired by Google for $300 million.
The company has some prominent firms such as financial management platform Credit Karma, San Francisco-based cloud communication company Twilio and South East Asia’s taxi-hailing app GrabTaxi, under its management.
Earlier, Infosys had invested in a venture capital firm, the Palo Alto-based Vertex Ventures, which is supported by former Facebook executive Jonathan Heilger and former Accel Partners executive Sik Rhee.
By investing in 500 Startups, the Indian IT giant will help to identify and support technology startups, which has the potential to succeed in the era of technological revolution.
The Times of India quoted Tom Reuner, managing director at HfS Research, saying, “By focusing the company strategy on automation and artificial intelligence and by emphasizing on leveraging the mindset of Silicon Valley, Vishal (CEO Vishal Sikka) has taken Infosys into unchartered territories, more reminiscent of an ISV (independent software vendor) than a service provider.”
Infosys has already invested $3 million in a Boston-based startup company Whoop that makes health and fitness analytics tool for athletes and $4 million in an Israeli startup CloudEndure that provides cloud migration and cloud-based disaster recovery software.
The company has set aside $ 500 million in the form of an innovation fund to invest in technology startups.