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After selling AppLabs, an independent software testing company with 2,500 professionals, to Computer Sciences Corporation in September 2011 for Rs 1,200 crore, giving 10 times return on investments to Series-A investors such as Westbridge and Sequoia Capital India, Sashi Reddi returned to his original passion - investing in start-ups.
A serial entrepreneur, Reddi had started three other companies prior to AppLabs: web content management firm EZPower Systems, which was acquired by DocuCorp and eventually became a part of Oracle; group purchasing dotcom iCoop; and game developing company FXLabs, which was acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment.
The founder and managing partner of SRI Capital, a Hyderabad-based seed-stage venture capital fund with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore, Reddi has in his portfolio start-ups such as Glassbeam (machine log analytics for technology support), ThinCI (graphics chip design firm), Identropy (identity management services firm), Edutor (tablet-based e-learning player), iMomentous (mobile-based talent engagement platform), Hello Curry (quick service restaurant chain), YuppTV (live Internet TV channel streaming platform), GIBSS (green energy leader), and NumberMall (hyperlocal marketing).
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In Edutor and GIBSS, SRI Capital was the first institutional investor and Reddi is on the board of the two companies. Both firms have successfully raised a Series-A round within two years of SRI's investment.
"The opportunity in India currently is in the consumer space as start-ups try to build Indian versions of Uber (Ola), Open Table (Zomato), etc. This will be an exciting area to watch over the next five years as some of these Indian players win or lose against their global counterparts," says the technocrat, who is also a member of the investment team at Gabriel Investments.
"In the US, I focus on enterprise SaaS (software as a service) opportunities since the consumer story has now played out with a lot of very well-funded start-ups in every large category. There is a shortage of capital in the enterprise tech space so it is where I can play a role."
Known for his business acumen, gentle manners and an unflappable style of functioning, Reddi has so far made 10 investments in the US in his personal capacity, while his SRI Capital has made an equal number of investments in India, which translates into one new investment per quarter. |
