Wipro looks at Microsoft Accelerator to help start-ups grow

Information technology major Wipro has said it will work with select start-ups in India that are associated with Microsoft Accelerator to help them scale their business and take them to customers globally.

Wipro will also look at start-ups to identify innovative solutions and products they can build in its offerings and help generate value for its customers.

The Bengaluru-based IT services firm has a dedicated Wipro ventures fund with a corpus of over $100 million to invest in start-ups building solutions and products like big data, open source, industrial internet and security. These investments are also tied up to Wipro’s IT services business with its clients.

So far, Rishad Premji-managed Wipro Ventures has invested in seven startups - Altizon, Avaamo, Vicarious, Vectra Networks, Intsights, Emailage Corp and Talena Inc and Israel-based TLV Ventures, a venture capital firm that looks at disruptive technology investments.

"Wipro has built strong connects in the global startup ecosystem, over the last three years, as part of our focus on building new open innovation capabilities," K R Sanjiv, Wipro's chief technology officer said on Wednesday after signing a partnership Microsoft Accelerator, through its CoInnovate programme.

Wipro's larger rival Tata Consultancy Services has also partnered with the accelarator to mentor startups. Cross town rival Infosys has a $ 500 million fund through which it has invested in startups in Silicon Valley and Israel.

Indian IT services firms are seeing business slow in traditional services such as application development and infrastructure maintenance, as clients globally are shifting towards moving their applications to the cloud. But the growth in newer segments such as digital, cloud and analytics is not significant enough for Indian firms to offset the slowdown in traditional services. At the same time, they also don't have enough capabilities to scale significantly in newer areas. So, they are looking at investing or acquiring startups that help them fill the gap and scale business faster.

"Connecting startups to corporates and crafting a win-win relationship is a critical need of the ecosystem today. The partnership with Wipro allows us to leverage our combined strengths and market reach to provide a whole new level of market access for our startups,"? said Bala Girisaballa, CEO-In-Residence, Microsoft Accelerator.

The partnership will help startups with more go-to-market opportunities by working with enterprise businesses. On the other hand, it will help Wipro and Microsoft to get easy access to innovative solutions from the startups. The partnership was announced as part of the accelerator's, which offers a platform for startups to collaborate with corporates.

"We are confident that our partnership with Microsoft Accelerator will be an important enabler in developing critical solutions for our customers, harnessing both the innovation taking place within Wipro and the external ecosystem," said K R Sanjiv, Chief Technology Officer, Wipro, during ThinkNext 2016, the programme that marked the graduation of 13 startups from the ninth batch of Microsoft Accelerator. The startups that graduated include Whodat, Betaout, MovenSync, Transaction Analysts, AllizHealth, Uncanny Vision, Meddiff, FarEye, Epictions, Germin8, Talview, Faircent and Surukam.

Despite a robust startup ecosystem, scaling up and global expansion remains the key challenges for startups in the country.

The current partnership is part of Wipro's Open Innovation through which the company partners with startups, academia, expert networks, venture capitalists and incubators/accelerators.