Murthy far behind Premji in family office stakes
ROAD MAP Murthy’s Catamaran is mulling whether to continue to fund startups
NEWDELHI: Infosys Ltd’s founder NR Narayana Murthy and Wipro Ltd’s chairman Azim Premji battled for supremacy in India’s information technology (IT) outsourcing industry for more than three decades.
Murthy, 72 and Premji, 73, find themselves in another duel, as the two billionaire septuagenarians’ financial and strategy skills are put to the test while they oversee their family offices, Catamaran Ventures LLP and Premjiinvest, respectively.
A decade after Murthy set up Catamaran in 2009, the venture capital fund continues to wrestle with how to find the best playbook.
Catamaran is now mulling whether it should continue to back startups and make any new investments in the sector, said two executives familiar with the matter.
Instead, the company plans to focus on investing in listed companies, the executives said, requesting anonymity.
The potential revamp of investment strategy by Catamaran tracks the appointment last month of Abishek Laxminarayan as chief executive officer (CEO).
His appointment follows the exit of Arjun Narayanswamy who took over as CEO of Soroco, a Boston-based artificial intelligence-focused firm.
Incidentally, Soroco was founded by Rohan Murty, son of Narayana Murthy, in 2014.
“In December, a review of the portfolio was undertaken by NRN and it was decided that Catamaran will not make any fresh investments in startups,” which Murthy could not do because he relied on a team of youngsters who had recently graduated from college to run the firm,” said the first executive cited above.
Catamaran currently has investments in seven startups, including education-technology focused startup Ace Creative Learning Pvt. Ltd, ad-tech firm Vyoma Media, Acko General Insurance, medical diagnosis firm Achira Labs, Healthspring Community Medical Centres, Innoviti Payment Solutions and Threadsol, a startup that offers enterprise material management technology to garment manufacturers.
Catamaran exited from Hector Beverages Pvt. Ltd, which makes traditional drinks under the Paper Boat brand, and sold its stake in Manipal Global Education Services in 2013.
Catamaran has investments in seven listed firms, including a 3.83% stake in Vesuvius India Ltd, 2.46% in Garware Technical Fibres Ltd, 2.65% in Ambika Cotton Mills Ltd and 1.07% in Nesco Ltd.
Catamaran also has less than 1% in Wabco India Ltd, S.H. Kelkar and Co. Ltd and SKF India Ltd.
In addition, Catamaran has a joint venture with Amazon.com Inc—cloudtail India Pvt. Ltd, the largest seller on Amazon India’s platform.
The joint venture (JV) partnership changed with Murthy’s firm now owning 76% in the JV as against 51% earlier after New Delhi changed the rules in December last year, limiting foreign e-commerce firms from owning a controlling stake in an entity which also sells on the market place.