Rostow Ravanan, co-founder of India’s mid-size IT company Mindtree, is apparently the latest member to make debut in India’s burgeoning startup industry. According to Economic Times (ET) report, Ravanan is all set to start a software as a Service (SaaS) startup that will primarily concentrate on healthcare and manufacturing sectors.
The co-founder may very well sell his minuscule stake of 0.69% in Mindtree in order to fund his startup ambition. He is reportedly not interested in any external fund infusion. As of today, he is not providing any exact timeline either about when the startup will officially be launched.
For people who are not aware, Ravanan is no longer with Mindtree. He left the midsize IT company after hostile takeover by engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) earlier this year. Mindtree also shares an interesting connection with Coffee Café Day’s founder V. G. Siddhartha, who shocked the corporate world by committing suicide few months back. It was Siddhartha’s stake sale that eventually led to L&T’s hostile takeover.
Mindtree also shares a very interesting connection with the Indian startup ecosystem as it was amongst the first Indian IT companies to be funded by venture capitalist fund. Although the company is still not considered in the league of TCS and Infosys, its steady growth has managed to catch the fancy of the Indian corporate world.
Mindtree is like a traditional IT company with minimal exposure to SaaS industry and hence Ravanan’s experience in SaaS market is far from flattering. Nonetheless, the highly lucrative Indian SaaS market seems to have got better off the Indian IT veteran’s inexperience. If NASSCOM’s latest report is to be believed then India’s SaaS industry will clock 36% annual growth rate and will touch approximately $3.3 Bn by 2022.
Freshworks and Zoho’s enormous success stories have already proven the huge potential of India’s SaaS industry.