Narayana Murthy’s venture capital fund to take off in March
Infy founder has selected someone from MIT to manage the fund.
Infosys chairman and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy’s venture capital fund Catamaran Investment Pvt Ltd will start investing in projects from March next year.
On the sidelines of Infosys Prize 2009 announcement on Monday, Murthy said he has already selected someone from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to manage the fund. However, he refused to give the name of the person.
“It (the fund) will be operational in March and invest in start-ups, mezzanine-stage and even late-stage ventures,” said Murthy, who will retire in late 2011.
He said the fund had a corpus of Rs 600 crore. “We have to see how we spend it. It (VC fund) is the best way to help youngster create jobs for the country.”
Murthy said the utilisation of the fund would not be restricted to India and could be invested in ventures outside India. His wife Sudha Murthy recently sold two million shares of her total Infosys holding on the Bombay Stock Exchange to raise around Rs 450 crore.
Earlier, Infosys founder had himself offloaded 0.13%, or eight lakh shares of his stake, in Infosys for Rs 174.30 crore to infuse money in the VC fund.
On the sidelines of Infosys Prize 2009 announcement on Monday, Murthy said he has already selected someone from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to manage the fund. However, he refused to give the name of the person.
“It (the fund) will be operational in March and invest in start-ups, mezzanine-stage and even late-stage ventures,” said Murthy, who will retire in late 2011.
He said the fund had a corpus of Rs 600 crore. “We have to see how we spend it. It (VC fund) is the best way to help youngster create jobs for the country.”
Murthy said the utilisation of the fund would not be restricted to India and could be invested in ventures outside India. His wife Sudha Murthy recently sold two million shares of her total Infosys holding on the Bombay Stock Exchange to raise around Rs 450 crore.
Earlier, Infosys founder had himself offloaded 0.13%, or eight lakh shares of his stake, in Infosys for Rs 174.30 crore to infuse money in the VC fund.