Former MindTree chairman Ashok Soota on Tuesday announced the establishment of his new business company, 'Happiest Minds Technologies Private Limited'.
Soota, who left the company he co-founded on April 1, told the media that he envisioned Happiest Minds achieving $100 million worth of sales within five fiscal years of operations and to be a full services firm with a global presence.
Happiest Minds, expected to be formally launched for customer delivery in five months, would have six lines of businesses, namely IT services, R&D services, product engineering services, remote infrastructure management, testing and consulting.
"Happiest Minds will focus on new emerging technologies like cloud, social CRM, unified communications, mobility, business intelligence and analytics," he said.
Soota said he was in touch with two venture capitalists to fund the business, but had sufficient funds for the next three months to fund it himself.
Soota on Tuesday iterated that he doesn't have a non-compete or non-solicit agreement with MindTree. He also expects to soon partially divest his 11.1 per cent stake in MindTree, valued at Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion).
"There was no burning need to divest stake in MindTree right now. I will divest my stake in due course."
He also said the funding would perhaps be higher than any typical startup in the IT services space.
"MindTree expects to rapidly etablish itself as a global player. It will open offices in various cities of the US, Continental Europe, UK, Japan, Singapore and India."
The new company will have marketing offices in Delhi and Mumbai, apart from Bengaluru.
A Chennai-based marketing agency had been roped to work out the modalities, he said. Asked if he was in talks with any Mind Tree co-founder or senior management from Wipro, where he worked as CEO, he said, "I am not in conversation with anyone."
The process of team building begins from today," he said, adding he expects all those interested in being part of the team to reach him following the announcement.
Being a late entrepreneur, he said he expects to bring his vast experience and expertise to the table.
Refusing to draw parallels between MindTree and his venture or on the reasons leading to his exit, he said the word 'Mind' in his former company and new venture was coincidental.
'Our bid is to create a niche company and such a company should have multiple service lines. Any other comparison is, I think, only coincidental," he said.
Soota said he plans to list his new venture in due course. He said his company would be looking at large corporations and medium and small enterprises.
"India will be an important market and we expect 10 to 12 per cent of business from within the country. But I feel US will bring us majority of revenue," he said.
Image: Ashok Soota
