6 Nov 2009, 0318 hrs IST, ET Bureau
BANGALORE: Sudha Murthy, the better half of the first couple of India’s IT industry, has made her second big venture capital investment. When husband N R Narayana Murthy was setting up Infosys in 1981 on a wing and a prayer, she gave him Rs 10,000 from her savings. Look what has happened to that money.
On Thursday, an Infosys announcement made clear that not much had changed between the couple in 28 years. This time, Mr Murthy’s big idea is called Catamaran — a venture capital fund — and his wife is helping him with a small matter of some Rs 430 crore.
The social worker and author sold 20 lakh Infosys shares owned by her, boosting the corpus of Catamaran to Rs 605 crore. Mr Murthy announced two weeks ago that he had sold eight lakh shares in the company he founded to establish a venture capital fund which will assist young entrepreneurs, mainly from India.
The couple don’t have any immediate plans to raise any more capital for Catamaran.
“Sudha Murthy selling shares is a good thing and it is nice to see somebody step away and help others become successful,” observed Sourabh Srivatsava, president of the India Venture Capital Association.
“We are beginning to see individuals and families getting active in this space,” he added, referring to similar ventures by the Future Group, Azim Premji’s PremjiInvest and the Religare Group.
Infosys’ shareholding pattern at the end of September showed Mr Murthy and his family owning a 4.97% stake in the company. His wife owned 1.62%, daughter Akshata 1.41% and son Rohan 1.39%.
Close observers of the venture capital industry believe that Mr Murthy will likely model Catamaran on the lines of Nadathur Holdings, a venture fund set up by former colleague and Infosys co-founder N S Raghavan. A family-administered fund, Nadathur Holdings was set up around nine years ago and backs scientific or business innovation driven startups.
Mr Murthy has said that his fund will help entrepreneurs across sectors such as healthcare, retail, technology with early stage investments. “I have always believed that entrepreneurship is an instrument of creating jobs and is the best way to solve poverty of a country like India.”
Catamaran is likely to be launched during the early part of 2010 and look at funding entrepreneurs as
well as making private equity investments in established businesses. Most of the investment activity is likely to centred around India but it may include some overseas ventures.
“We will not be in a hurry to finish the fund; there’s no limit for spending,” Mr Murthy said two weeks ago.
Infosys also told the stock exchanges on Thursday that its MD & CEO S Gopalakrishnan has acquired four lakh shares in the company through open market purchases, taking his total holding 66.56 lakh shares.
via:E.T
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