Cisco invests in 3 Indian start-ups, more on the way

BESIDES EARLY STAGE FUNDING, CISCO INDIA IS ALSO DRAWING FROM ITS ₹1,525 CR GLOBAL FUND FOR INVESTMENTS IN SMALL TECH FIRMS

BANGALORE: In a sign of growing interest in Indian start-ups among global tech-giants, Cisco has made three investments in early-stage companies within four months of launching a $40-million (₹240-crore) India Innovation Fund.

The company is also in talks with six to eight companies for picking up stakes.

“What we have seen in recent months is that there are more opportunities than we can potentially handle,” said Joydeep Bose, managing director, corporate strategy, investments and mergers & acquisitions, Cisco India.

“The pipeline is so good that we should be having a situation where within 12 months a significant portion will be deployed. Then we will decide how much more early stage funding we want to do,” Bose said.

Besides early stage funding, Cisco India is also drawing from $250 million (₹1,525 crore) global fund for venture investments in small technology firms. “Under both themes, we did three investments last quarter and we have a pipeline of about six companies are going through investment committee discussion this quarter,” he said.

Cisco had earlier in the year announced that its investments would be focused on big data & analytics, the Internet of Things (IOT), connected mobility and silicon among other things.

Cisco has invested in analytics company, Covascis, mobile e-commerce application company, Mobstac and a chipmaker for wearable gadgets.

“We look at companies building cloud-enabled apps and platforms, solutions in healthcare, education and cost optimisation,” Bose said. “Our investment programme has accelerated because of the fact that capturing innovation from startup companies has become imperative,” he added.