Ashok Soota, who co-founded MindTree Consulting, has announced the launch of a new business venture - Happiest Minds Technologies Limited to provide IT services to global firms.
"Happiest Minds will focus on new emerging technologies like cloud, social CRM (customer relationship management), unified communications, mobility, business intelligence and analytics," said Ashok Soota.
On the source of funding the start-up, Soota said though he would be investing his personal funds initially as seed capital, he was in consultation with two venture capitalists to take equity stake in the company for kick-starting the operations.
"I will raise funds by partially divesting my stake (11.1 per cent) in MindTree, valued at Rs.1,600 crore (Rs.16 billion), in due course to partially fund the new venture," Soota said. Clarifying that he did not have a non-compete agreement with MindTree, Soota said he was hopeful of attracting some top professionals in the industry to run the company, as he was already in touch with some of them.
"We will have marketing offices in Mumbai and New Delhi, besides Bangalore. We have hired a Chennai-based marketing agency to work out the modalities," Soota added.
Noting that the US would be the main market for client acquisition, his new firm would also focus on the Indian market to generate 10-12 per cent of business.
