What Infosys Does For Startups Under Vishal Sikka’s Guidance

Earlier today (18 August) Vishal Sikka, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Infosys Ltd, has resigned from his position and Pravin Rao has been appointed as interim MD and CEO.  

Sikka has been appointed as executive vice chairman in a newly created position, the company said in a notice to stock exchanges on Friday (18 August) morning. 

Dr Sikka joined Infosys on 1 August 2014 and since then to till date, he has implemented a strategy of helping clients, renew their existing landscapes to fundamentally drive down costs using automation and artificial intelligence, and at the same time bring breakthrough innovation that transforms user and consumer experiences, opens new business opportunities and new business models, and leverages data in entirely new ways, as per his profile showed on Infosys’ website.

In 2015, Infosys announced $500 million Innovation Fund earmarked for investments in the growth of disruptive new technologies.  

The company has made investment in around 12 startups so far from its fund including ideaForge, Stellaris Venture Partners, UNSILO, TidalScale, Trifacta, Waterline Data, WHOOP, CloudEndure, Airviz Speck, ANSR Consulting, Vertex Ventures and Nova. 

The Innovation Fund helps start-ups by providing early-stage capital, mentorship, product validation, customer introductions and go-to-market scale. The Infosys Innovation Fund invests in start-ups at early stage (typically Series A or B, occasionally seed) in Machine Learning, Big Data & Analytics, Infrastructure & Cloud, Collaboration & Design, among others.

As a strategic partner, Infosys offers many benefits to start-ups it invest in including: Financial Scale (early-stage capital to start-ups), Technical Scale (development resources), and Market cale (go-to-market assistance), Social Impact (taking on problems with big social impact), Incubation Programs and Customer Validation (invite start-ups to meet senior executives). 

Infosys is keen to continue sharing its expertise to assist start-ups that are developing and enabling new technologies.