Soota is relinquishing his position as a controlling promoter of Happiest Mind and cashing out a firm that he founded in 2011 and took public in 2020. The company was listed at a premium of 110 per cent. Soota will now be focusing on his diagnostic healthcare and wellness company Happiest Health and not-for-profit medical research trust SKAN.
The serial entrepreneur wants to scale up these two ventures — started between 2021 and 2022 — using Happiest Minds sale proceeds. As part of the deal, about 22.1 per cent of his stake is being transferred to the ITC subsidiary for ₹1,300 crore cash in two stages. Soota will become a minority shareholder in the merged company with 7.55 per cent stake.
It could not be immediately ascertained what portion of the proceeds will go to the two ventures. He was not part of the media briefing on Tuesday. He previously committed ₹200 crore towards SKAN, a medical research trust focused on ageing and neurological disorders in partnership with Bengaluru's IISc Centre for Brain Research and St John's Geriatric Centre.
“Mr Soota was looking to scale down his investments in Happiest Minds to fund his new ventures,” Happiest Minds’ Managing Director Venkataraman Narayanan said. “That is the legacy he wants to leave. The funding will come through the sale of shares. He sold some stake in a couple of block deals but trying to do a block deal has its own negatives on the share price and also on morale of shareholders. So, the idea was to place a small block with a strategic investor,” he added.
SKAN recently opened a 22,000 square feet (sq ft) campus in Attibele in Bengaluru and the initiative has partnership with Cambridge University, Quadram Institute of Biosciences, and Wellcome Sanger Institute.
It has been a remarkable journey for Soota, whose name would feature right at the top beside Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji in terms of the impact he has had in India's IT industry over the last three decades. Before starting Happiest Minds, he founded Mindtree (now known as LTM) in 1999 along with the likes of Subrato Bagchi and took it public in 2007.
Between 1985 and 1999, he worked with Wipro and was the most visible face of India’s fourth-largest IT services provider before turning into an entrepreneur. When he left as president of Wipro Infotech, the unit’s revenue was about ₹2,150 crore (around $500 million), up from ₹7 crore when he joined.
Just like Murthy and Premji, Soota was also the byproduct of India’s economic liberalisation in 1991, which led to the IT boom and created a wealthy middle class. To him, AI is the largest inflection point and game-changer the IT industry has seen in over 40 years.
When Business Standard asked him in June about how AI will impact healthcare in the future, Soota said the key differentiator will be synergy.
“SKAN takes up research projects with Happiest Health clinics which also provide the cohorts for the studies. Research is done in stem cells and gut microbiome. All this requires large data analytics and bioinformatic skills provide by Happiest Minds. Finally, both SKAN and Happiest Health require technology platforms which are developed by Happiest Minds. This interlocking of skills leads to new solutions and synergy. This will be the way of the future with each partner focusing on their own core competence while creating a whole much greater than the sum of its parts,” he had said.
Soota is not hanging up his boots anytime soon.
 "Happiest Minds, Executive Chairman ASHOK SOOTA")