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Rishad leads hunt, Wipro eyes tie-up with 3 startups [India Business] [Times of India](Times of India Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) BANGALORE: Wipro has doubled its efforts for partnerships with technology startups. The company recently launched a Rs 100-crore venture fund that is to be overseen by Rishad Premji, its chief strategy officer and promoter Azim Premji's son. India's third-largest IT services company is in talks with startups Flytxt, 99tests and Avekshaa Technologies for strategic tie-ups. Premji's team recently visited the Nasscom Startup Warehouse in Bangalore and reviewed a few of the startups being incubated there. Premji and CEO T K Kurien also met US-based startups on a recent trip to that country. Netherlands-based Flytxt is a big data analytics solution provider for communication service companies with global delivery centres in Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai. It has over 300 employees. "We are still in discussions with Wipro, exploring the opportunity to build joint solution offerings and joint go-to-market strategy," said Pravin Vijay, director-marketing at Flytxt. 99tests.com is a Bangalore-based software testing startup that optimizes testing costs by crowdsourcing the activity. "Wipro has asked us to develop a proof of concept for a project," said Praveen Singh, cofounder of 99tests. The startup, which counts Flipkart and Foodpanda as clients, offers on-demand testers with an attractive pricing model. Avekshaa Technologies is a Bangalore-based startup that has a PAAS (performance, availability, scalability and security) platform that detects architecture and design issues early on in the software development lifecycle. "We are in talks with Wipro's CTO office to provide solutions for its testing service to begin with," said Rajinder Gandotra, founder of Avekshaa Technologies. Last year, Wipro invested $5 million in US-based Axeda Corporation, which offers cloud-based service and software for managing connected products. It also has a 12.5% stake in New Jersey-based Opera Solutions, a big data and predictive analytics firm. Wipro declined to comment for this story. Indian IT majors are fast scaling up their digital and social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) play, as these are becoming major components of IT deals. While they are organically building these capabilities, they are also looking at IP-led partnerships or buyouts. that can help them build the capabilities faster, as also differentiate themselves from competition. The country's fifth largest IT services firm Tech Mahindra bought 75% stake in US-based data analytics startup FixStream Network for Rs 60 crore in April. Nasdaq-listed Pegasystems acquired text mining and analytics software startup MeshLabs in May. (c) 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited |