Premji Invest, the family office of Wipro’s billionaire Chairman Azim Premji, is getting aggressive with its bets on overseas start-ups. It has now announced its third investment within a span of six months. The firm has led an $80 million series C financing round of California-based Cyanogen, a firm that develops a more open Android-based operating system for smart phones and touted as a fledgling rival to Google.
“We invested in Cyanogen because we're big proponents of what they're doing in opening up Android and supporting global and local ecosystem players,” Sandesh Patnam, Technology Sector Lead of Premji Invest, said in a statement. “Cyanogen is well positioned to become the 3rd leading mobile operating system (OS), and we're excited to back them in growing their business on a global scale,'' he added.
The quantum of the Premji Invest's investment in the company is not known. The firm, however, is joined by other marquee names such as News Corp promoter Rupert Murdoch, Twitter’s private investment arm Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Telefónica Ventures, Smartfren Telecom, Index Ventures, Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, Vivi Nevo and several-yet-to-be announced partners, according to statement by Cyanogen. “Existing investors Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, and Tencent Holdings Ltd. have also participated,” it added.
The investment also comes after Microsoft reportedly decided not to invest in the firm.
Cyanogen said it would use the funds to leverage the infusion of new funding to hire talent and accelerate the development of its open OS platform. The OS allows smartphone users to customize their devices and content, and is used by firms such as Micromax and OnePlus, among others.
With this latest infusion, Cyanogen has so far raised $110 million in funding. In 2009, it had raised $23 million.
“We're committed to creating an open computing platform that fundamentally empowers the entire mobile ecosystem - from developers to hardware makers, and, most importantly, consumers around the world,” said Kirt McMaster, CEO of Cyanogen Inc. “We're excited to have the backing of an amazingly diverse group of strategic investors who are supporting us in building a truly open Android.”
The current investments also show Premji Invest appetite to invest in diversified range of start-ups. Just two weeks ago, it joined others in a $115 million investment round of California-based Zuora Inc, a software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based subscription billing and financial solutions venture. The round was led by BlackRock, Passport Capital and Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com and Premji Invest.
In September 2014, the firm had invested in Silicon Valley-based database technology firm DataStax. It participated in the $106 million pre-IPO (initial public offer) round led by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers (KPCB).
“Premji Invest Family Office would be the biggest investor in domestic and overseas firm at present,” says, Arun Natarajan, founder of Venture Intelligence, a research firm tracking private company financials, transactions and valuations in India.
