In their second innings, Infy co-founders to incubate new ideas

Healthcare and sustainability to be prime focus as Gopalakrishnan and Shibulal launch incubator

They spent the most part of their professional lives — over three decades — together. Now, after retirement, two of Infosys’ co-founders — Kris Gopalakrishnan and S D Shibulal — have decided to extend a helping hand to start-ups, besides working on their own ideas.

Both Gopalakrishnan and Shibhulal, along with their former Infosys colleague Srinath Batni, who retired from the company and board earlier, have launched an incubator, Axilor Ventures. According to Gopalakrishnan, Axilor Ventures will not be a venture capital fund but each of them can pump in money from their personal funds to incubate the successful ideas and ventures when needed.

“There will be no common fund. Each of us have our own investment portfolio and investment fund, and each of us will invest individually,” Gopalakrishnan told Business Standard.

According to V Ganapathy Subramanian, a former Infosys senior executive who is now heading Axilor Ventures, they are looking at different possible programmes since it is quite early now. “One programme could be meant for start-ups, for entrepreneurs who have ideas and need support during their early stages. The second could be where we have our own ideas and we could incubate them. Besides, there would be some kind of early stage funding as well,” he said.

Among the different areas, Axilor Ventures has identified to incubate start-ups and ideas in few technology and allied areas. “Predominantly it will be in technology with particular interest in healthcare and sustainability,” said Shibulal.

Of the seven co-founders of Infosys, N S Raghavan, who retired from the company in 2007, now manages Nadathur Holdings and Investments, a venture capital fund which invests in technology companies. Besides, he has also set up an entrepreneurship development cell at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. N R Narayana Murthy, through his family office, now runs Catamaran Ventures, a $130-million venture capital and private equity fund, set up in 2010.