Wipro said it has invested $2.02 million in Avaamo Inc, an artificial intelligence-based conversational computing platform, Avaamo inc. “Investment of $2.02 million in this tranche through a fresh infusion of funds into Avaamo,” the company said in a BSE filing. Reportedly, the tech giant will make an additional investment through conversion of convertible notes issued earlier, taking the total investment to $3.02 million. India’s third largest software service exporter said that the cash deal was completed on March 14, 2018. The deal will give Wipro a minority stake of less than 20 percent on a diluted basis. Avaamo is a Los Altos-based startup founded by Ram Menon and Sriram Chakravarthy in 2014. The early-stage company provides artificial intelligence-driven enterprise bot platform that simplifies the time needed to design and deploy enterprise bots to their customers and to corporate employees. In India, Avaamo has an office in Bengaluru. The company, through its investment arm Wipro Ventures, primarily invests in early-to-mid-stage startups in emerging technologies in US, India and Israel. Wipro Ventures has got a corpus of $100 million and is headed by Rishad Premji. The key focus areas of the investments are AI, big data, IoT, FinTech, healthcare IT etc. Earlier in November 2017, Wipro Ventures picked a minority stake in California-based app testing platform HeadSpin Inc for an undisclosed amount. It has also invested in US-based cybersecurity company Vectra Networks to deliver automated ‘Threat Hunting as-a-service’. On February 2016, it has picked up a minority stake in Pune-based big data startup Altizon for Rs 9.78 crore. The tech company has also invested in robotics startup Vicarious and risk and fraud prevention firm Emailage Corporation. comments
European IT services provider Wipro has acquired an almost 20 % stake in US start - up Avaamo , via its investment arm , Wipro Ventures , in a cash transaction worth more than $ 2 m . The acquisition also includes an additional investment in the form of convertible notes , taking the total investment to more than $ 3 m . Los Altos - based Avaamo , which has developed an artificial intelligence - driven enterprise bot platform , is the latest in a series of purchases by Wipro Ventures , which include HeadSpin and Vectra ##ware .