Infy invests Rs 31.6 cr in Stellaris Venture

India’s second largest IT company Infosys on Wednesday said it will invest Rs 31.6 crore in early stage venture fund Stellaris Venture Partners.

In a regulatory filing, Infosys stated that it has signed a definitive agreement with Stellaris Venture Partners to invest from its Innovation Fund. This is the second investment in early stage venture capital firm after Silicon Valley-based Vertex Ventures.

Stellaris aims to back entrepreneurs building applications for global businesses, Indian SMBs and consumers in verticals such as financial services, retail, healthcare and education. It has also built a robust network of successful entrepreneurs and advisors to source, evaluate and mentor the best Indian startups.

Commenting on the investment, Infosys Executive Vice President and Global Head of Corporate Development and Ventures Ritika Suri said that Stellaris with its extensive operational and domain expertise in enterprise software and services in both India and the US, is uniquely positioned to leverage India’s capital-efficient talent pool.

“It will help the company harness the next wave of enterprise innovation in India. With this investment, we look forward to gaining early access to innovative new companies in India that are inventing the future of enterprises globally,” she said.

The new investment is towards the first close of Stellaris’ fund and it is likely to be completed by December 15, 2016. This is the second investment announced by Infosys within a week that is being funded by Infosys’ Innovation Fund.

Infosys set up the innovation fund in 2013 and later decided to ramp it up five-fold to $500 million in 2015 to provide financing to startups and new technologies like artificial intelligence.

Also, Infosys looks at India’s startup ecosystem as it is witnessing rapid growth led by areas such as cloud computing, IoT, artificial intelligence and big data, as well as the widespread proliferation of smartphones.