Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Invests in Pune-based Sedemac Mechatronics

Infosys founder Narayana Murthy's family office, Catamaran, has invested in Sedemac Mechatronics, a Pune-based automotive electronics and electrical components maker reports Economic Times. This investment comes as part of a secondary transaction, where an early investor exited, and Catamaran joined the cap table.

Sedemac specializes in precision manufacturing for automotive applications, supplying components for small engines, electric vehicles, and e-bikes. The company has partnerships with major OEMs like Hero MotoCorp, Mahindra Group, and TVS.

This move aligns with Catamaran's broader strategy of backing intelligent manufacturing startups, focusing on robotics, predictive analytics, and maintenance. There's also speculation about a potential IPO worth ₹800-1,000 crore in the near future.

Sedemac Mechatronics was founded in 2007 by Manish Sharma, Amit Dixit, Shashikanth Suryanarayanan, and Pushkaraj Panse . The company originated from research at IIT Bombay and has since grown into a key player in automotive electronics and electrical components.

Sedemac Mechatronics has come a long way since its founding in 2007. Initially, it emerged from IIT Bombay research, focusing on fuel injection systems for two- and three-wheelers 1. Over time, it expanded into powertrain controls, sensor-less technology, and electric vehicle components, securing partnerships with major OEMs like Mahindra, TVS, and Hero MotoCorp.

By 2010, the company faced challenges breaking into top-tier OEMs but gradually built credibility through innovative engine control solutions. It later introduced diesel engine variants, earning trust from heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers like Kirloskar and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Fast forward to 2024, Sedemac has grown into a ₹2,000 crore company, raising $100 million to scale its operations 2. It continues to focus on deep-tech solutions, particularly in electric vehicles and predictive analytics, reinforcing its position as a global supplier of automotive electronics.

Catamaran, Narayana Murthy's family office, has backed around 28 private firms across technology, manufacturing, deep tech, and e-commerce. Some notable investments include:

• Acko - A digital insurance startup.
• Udaan - A B2B e-commerce platform.
• PaperBoat - A beverage brand known for traditional Indian drinks.
• SpaceX - Yes, Elon Musk's aerospace company!
• Eton Solutions - A cloud-based software services firm for family offices.

Catamaran has been expanding its portfolio with intelligent manufacturing startups, focusing on robotics, predictive analytics, and maintenance.

Know the Bangladeshi Social Entrepreneur Whom Infosys' Narayana Murthy Praised Lately

Recently, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy stressed the significance of a Bangladesh-based social entrepreneur, who could now possibly head the interim government of Bangladesh, post the unrest in the country. In an opinion article for The Print, Narayana Murthy noted that starting in the mid-1970s, this Bangladesh-based entrepreneur has painstakingly created dozens of organisations that have done a world of good—not only for Bangladesh—but for the world.

The veteran Indian IT pioneer talked about Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and his ideas.

“Other leaders studied his models and adapted them in places as diverse as the Philippines, the United States, Kenya, and India. His influence on the thinking and work of a generation of traditional and social entrepreneurs is undeniable,” Murthy wrote.

For an uninitiated, Muhammad Yunus is a renowned Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader. He is best known for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance, which provide small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. This innovative approach has helped lift millions out of poverty and earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Recently, Muhammad Yunus has been chosen to head Bangladesh's interim government following the resignation of the country's longtime prime minister amid violent unrest. His leadership is seen as a beacon of hope for many in Bangladesh, given his track record in social and economic development.

Narayana Murthy has often praised Muhammad Yunus for his groundbreaking work in microfinance and social entrepreneurship. Murthy believes that Yunus’s ideas are crucial in today’s world, especially as we face increasing economic disparities and social challenges.

Yunus’s approach to empowering the poor through microcredit and fostering social businesses can provide sustainable solutions to many of the issues we encounter today. By focusing on creating opportunities for the underprivileged, Yunus’s model promotes inclusive growth and hels build resilient communities.

Murthy’s endorsement highlights the importance of innovative and compassionate approaches to economic development.

Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work in microcredit and microfinance. He founded the Grameen Bank in 1983, which provided small loans to impoverished entrepreneurs who lacked access to traditional banking services. This innovative approach empowered millions of people, especially women, to start their own businesses and improve their living conditions.

The Nobel Committee recognized Yunus and the Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below, highlighting how microcredit can be a powerful tool in the fight against poverty. Yunus' work demonstrated that even the poorest individuals can achieve financial independence and contribute to their communities when given the right support.

Besides the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus has founded several impactful social businesses aimed at addressing various social issues such as Grameen Danone Foods, which is a joint venture with Danone, producing nutrition-enriched yogurt for malnourished children in Bangladesh. Another one, Grameen Shakti, focuses on providing renewable energy solutions, such as solar power, to rural areas in Bangladesh.

An another Yunus-founded entity Grameen Eyecare Hospital offers affordable eye care services to the underprivileged, aiming to reduce preventable blindness.

Yunus Social Business (YSB) is an organization that supports and invests in social businesses globally, tackling issues like poverty and climate change.

These ventures exemplify how Yunus's innovative approach to social business can create sustainable solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems.

Impact of Yunus-Models in India

Muhammad Yunus has had a significant impact in India through his work in microfinance and social business.

The Grameen Bank model has been replicated in various parts of India, providing microcredit to millions of poor entrepreneurs, especially women, to help them start small businesses and improve their livelihoods.

Yunus has even collaborated with several Indian organizations to promote social business and microfinance. For instance, he has worked with the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) to empower women through microcredit.

Yunus Social Business India is part of the global Yunus Social Business (YSB) network, founded by Muhammad Yunus. This initiative focuses on supporting and growing social businesses that address critical social issues in India. The initiative supports and invests in social businesses across India, addressing issues like poverty, healthcare, and education. It aims to create sustainable solutions to social problems by fostering entrepreneurship.

YSB India provides flexible loans and growth support to social businesses, helping them scale and increase their impact. These businesses tackle issues like poverty, healthcare, education, and clean energy.

 

N R Narayana Murthy will Speak at IET India Digital Conversations about Leading India's Digital Revolution

The sixteenth edition of IET India Digital Conversations, powered by the IET Future Tech Panel, will see N R Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys Limited join us for a fireside chat on - 'Leading India's Digital Revolution'. Post the fireside chat, Jim Morrish, Founding Partner, Transforma Insights, will share insights on - 'Enterprise adoption of new technologies and prediction for the future'.

Speakers at IET India Digital Conversations on Leading India's Digital Revolution: Jim Morrish, N R Narayana Murthy, Dr Rishi Bhatnagar and Shekhar Sanyal

Speaking about the event on 11 August, 2020, Shekhar Sanyal, Country Head and Director, IET India said, "We are immensely excited to welcome N R Narayana Murthy, The IET's Honorary Fellow to the sixteenth episode of IET India Digital Conversations. As part of our 150 year old legacy, the IET as an organisation has always created relevant conversations and platforms in working to engineer a better world. Be it our IET Future Tech Panel, Digital Conversations or our constant release of white papers and advisory notes, we have always led the path to help our stakeholders be at the cusp of technological changes."

N R Narayana Murthy, Founder - Infosys Limited said, "As long as the thread of innovation and enthusiasm is tightly woven, the Indian technology sector will remain relevant and ready for the future." He also added, "It gives me immense satisfaction to see institutions like the IET play their role by building neutral platforms like the IET Future Tech Panel. Such platforms work towards accelerating the adoption for future technologies. I wish the team immense success and the will to achieve every milestone."

Jim Morrish, member of the Global Advisory Body of the IET Future Tech Panel said that, "India is at a watershed movement, with the IET Future Tech Panel focusing on technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT and Virtual Reality amongst many others, this countrywide focus is bound to lead towards a digital revolution." The Founding Partner of Transforma Insights also added, "With the guidance of N R Narayana Murthy, I am certain that the panel will be effective in helping the IET lead India's digital revolution."

Dr Rishi Mohan Bhatnagar, Chair of The IET Future Tech Panel, said, "Our vision is for India to take a leadership role in the digital revolution by innovating and using future technologies. The IET Future Tech Panel is a neutral platform to guide, support, experiment and encourage technologists to lead this revolution. We look forward to learn and imbibe lessons from N R Narayana Murthy who has worked to make India a leader in the IT space. It gives me immense pleasure to welcome him."

The registrations for this 90 minute episode from 11:00-12:30 on 11 August, 2020 are open and available on our social media handles - Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

About the IET

We inspire, inform and influence the global engineering community to engineer a better world

We are a diverse home for engineering and technology intelligence throughout the world. This breadth and depth mean we are uniquely placed to help the sector progress society

We want to build the profile of engineering and technology to change outdated perceptions and tackle the skills gap. This includes encouraging more women to become engineers and growing the number of engineering apprentices

Interview opportunities are available with our spokespeople from a range of engineering and technology disciplines including cyber-security, energy, engineering skills, innovation, manufacturing, technology, transport and diversity in engineering

For more information, please visit www.theiet.org.

Institution of Engineering and Technology - India

The IET office started operations in India in 2006, in Bangalore. Today, we have over 13,000 members and have the largest membership base for the IET outside of the UK.

Given the increasing global importance of India as an engineering hub our aim is to make an impact that has relevance both locally and internationally. Our strategy is to make a meaningful impact on the overall competency and skill levels within the Indian engineering community and play an influencing role with industry in relation to technology innovation and solving problems of public importance.

We want to do this through working in partnership with industry, academia and government, focussing on the application of practical skills within both learning & career lifecycles, driving innovation and thought leadership through high impact sectors.

For more details, please visit: india.theiet.org.

How A Bitter 1974 Train Experience Turned Narayana Murthy into a "Compassionate Capitalist"

A bitter experience on a train in 1974 in Nis, a border town between what is now Serbia and Bulgaria, turned N R Narayana Murthy into a "compassionate capitalist", leading him to create Infosys, the country's IT bellwether.

Recalling the incident, Murthy said he was engaged in a conversation with a girl, who could only understand French, but it landed him in trouble.

"We were talking about life in Bulgaria. I think the boy, who was accompanying the girl, got upset with us for some reason. So, he went and brought the police," Murthy said on Sunday while addressing the audience at a tech fest organized by IIT, Bombay, through a video link.

The Bulgarian guards took Murthy's passport, luggage and dragged him on the platform. He was kept in an 8X8 room, with primitive toilet facilities, for a few days.

"I thought they would open the door in the morning and get me some breakfast since I was the state guest, but nothing happened. I lost all hope of eating anything," he said.

The next morning, police took Murthy to the platform and pushed him into the guard's compartment of a departing freight train. At this point, Murthy had not had anything to eat or drink for five days in a row.

The guards said, "Look, you are from a friendly country called India, so we are letting you go but we will give you your passport when you reach Istanbul."

If a country treats friends like this, Murthy thought to himself, he would not want to be part of a communist country ever.

"That cued me from being a confused leftist to a determined compassionate capitalist," he said.

That incident pushed Murthy towards taking the plunge into entrepreneurship.

He said his first attempt at entrepreneurship was a company called Softronics focused on providing IT services to the domestic market, in Pune, which he closed as he could not see any future prospects. PTI HV DIV HMB

Infosys Co-Founders To Invest Upto $1Mn In India Startups

SD Shibulal and Kris GopalaKrishnan, the Infosys co-founders who recently passed their baton are back in the business. They have teamed together once gain to set up an incubator called Axilor Ventures. Through their incubator they wish to mentor and back early stage startups and invest upto $1 million in each startup they choose. Srinath Batni, an Infosys veteran, who had previously led the delivery operations at the company, has also joined hands with Shibulal and GopalKrishnan for Axilor.

Axilor ventures is looking forward to mentor technology focused startups in areas like healthcare, e-commerce, wearable technologies and also those companies that develop technology for sustainable business. Axilor is expected to go live from the end of November.

"We all have a fund of our own. The idea is to now jointly invest if we are excited about any startup" said Gopalkrishnan in a statement to Economic Times. He refused to divulge any details about the quantity of the investment corpus but made it clear that all the investments would either be “seed or angel”.

According to V Ganapathy Subramanian's statement to Economic Times, "We are looking to invest anywhere between Rs. 30 lakhs and Rs. 6 crore".  Subramanian has earlier been the head of planning and strategy at Infosys and is currently the CEO at Axilor Ventures. More clarity on the investment focus and the quantum of investments will only be available after the incubator is launched officially.

Infosys co-founders and Ex Top managment position holders are pouring money in Indian Startups especially in Bnagalore region as earlier, Bangalore based start-up Clonect Solutions got funding from Ex-Infosys CFOs.

According to NASSCOM, around 800 startups are launched every year in India and by 2020, there would be around 11,500 startups employing over 2.5 lakh people in India.

Infosys veterans for long have been actively participating in the booming Indian Startup sector Catamaran Ventures run by Narayana Murthy’s family is one of the examples of industry veterans taking interest in the Indian startup scene. Narayana Murthy was the former Chairman at the software services company. NS Raghavan, who is a co-founder at Infosys, has also set up Ojas Ventures, a technology investment firm which has backed startups like interactive technology developer TELiBrahma and Vizury, an internet marketing company.

Infosys Co-Founders To Invest Upto $1Mn In India Startups

SD Shibulal and Kris GopalaKrishnan, the Infosys co-founders who recently passed their baton are back in the business. They have teamed together once gain to set up an incubator called Axilor Ventures. Through their incubator they wish to mentor and back early stage startups and invest upto $1 million in each startup they choose. Srinath Batni, an Infosys veteran, who had previously led the delivery operations at the company, has also joined hands with Shibulal and GopalKrishnan for Axilor.

Axilor ventures is looking forward to mentor technology focused startups in areas like healthcare, e-commerce, wearable technologies and also those companies that develop technology for sustainable business. Axilor is expected to go live from the end of November.

"We all have a fund of our own. The idea is to now jointly invest if we are excited about any startup" said Gopalkrishnan in a statement to Economic Times. He refused to divulge any details about the quantity of the investment corpus but made it clear that all the investments would either be “seed or angel”.

According to V Ganapathy Subramanian's statement to Economic Times, "We are looking to invest anywhere between Rs. 30 lakhs and Rs. 6 crore".  Subramanian has earlier been the head of planning and strategy at Infosys and is currently the CEO at Axilor Ventures. More clarity on the investment focus and the quantum of investments will only be available after the incubator is launched officially.

Infosys co-founders and Ex Top managment position holders are pouring money in Indian Startups especially in Bnagalore region as earlier, Bangalore based start-up Clonect Solutions got funding from Ex-Infosys CFOs.

According to NASSCOM, around 800 startups are launched every year in India and by 2020, there would be around 11,500 startups employing over 2.5 lakh people in India.

Infosys veterans for long have been actively participating in the booming Indian Startup sector Catamaran Ventures run by Narayana Murthy’s family is one of the examples of industry veterans taking interest in the Indian startup scene. Narayana Murthy was the former Chairman at the software services company. NS Raghavan, who is a co-founder at Infosys, has also set up Ojas Ventures, a technology investment firm which has backed startups like interactive technology developer TELiBrahma and Vizury, an internet marketing company.

Narayana Murthy forms JV with Amazon for new E-Commerce entity

N R Narayana Murthy, Infosys' co-founder and former Chairman has joined hands with Seattle based Amazon for an e-commerce joint venture in India.  It seems, after the IT industry, Murthy has his eyes set on revolutionizing the e-commerce sector.

Catamaran Ventures, which is Murthy’s private investment firm has decided to create a new entity by forming a joint venture with Amazon’s Asia unit. This new entity will have an aim of helping the small and medium businesses in India.

The joint venture is called Taurus Business and Trade services and will be operational in major cities and towns of the country. The partnership was officially formalized in May and Murthy’s Catamaran has the majority shareholding in the new entity. Catamaran has 51% stake in the partnership as administrated by India’s foreign direct investment regulations.

The new company will be offering services that will help offline sellers and SMBs in India to get online and reap the benefits of the fast growing online customer base in the country. The company would focus on the inclusion of SMBs into the digital economy.

Amazon made an entry into the Indian market last year with its Amazon Seller Services which provides a third-party marketplace for products. Indian laws do not allow foreign retailers to sell online directly.

Catamaran has previously also made investments in Yebhi.com, which is an online fashion portal. The company is  not doing so well since its two co-founders have quit in early 2014.

With a $3.2 billion worth, the Indian e-commerce is booming like never before and it seems its growth has caught the fancy of the global giants who are trying hard to reap in the fruits of this boom. Domestic companies like Snapdeal, Myntra, Jabong and Flipkart are targeting the gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2014. GMV is a term in online retailing which is used to indicate a total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time interval.

While the domestic players are aiming growth, the international players like EBay, Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba and Rakuten are eyeing their growth. Amazon Asia is making available logistics and backend support for the venture.

Narayana Murthy forms JV with Amazon for new E-Commerce entity

N R Narayana Murthy, Infosys' co-founder and former Chairman has joined hands with Seattle based Amazon for an e-commerce joint venture in India.  It seems, after the IT industry, Murthy has his eyes set on revolutionizing the e-commerce sector.

Catamaran Ventures, which is Murthy’s private investment firm has decided to create a new entity by forming a joint venture with Amazon’s Asia unit. This new entity will have an aim of helping the small and medium businesses in India.

The joint venture is called Taurus Business and Trade services and will be operational in major cities and towns of the country. The partnership was officially formalized in May and Murthy’s Catamaran has the majority shareholding in the new entity. Catamaran has 51% stake in the partnership as administrated by India’s foreign direct investment regulations.

The new company will be offering services that will help offline sellers and SMBs in India to get online and reap the benefits of the fast growing online customer base in the country. The company would focus on the inclusion of SMBs into the digital economy.

Amazon made an entry into the Indian market last year with its Amazon Seller Services which provides a third-party marketplace for products. Indian laws do not allow foreign retailers to sell online directly.

Catamaran has previously also made investments in Yebhi.com, which is an online fashion portal. The company is  not doing so well since its two co-founders have quit in early 2014.

With a $3.2 billion worth, the Indian e-commerce is booming like never before and it seems its growth has caught the fancy of the global giants who are trying hard to reap in the fruits of this boom. Domestic companies like Snapdeal, Myntra, Jabong and Flipkart are targeting the gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2014. GMV is a term in online retailing which is used to indicate a total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time interval.

While the domestic players are aiming growth, the international players like EBay, Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba and Rakuten are eyeing their growth. Amazon Asia is making available logistics and backend support for the venture.