India-based information technology company Happiest Minds secured $45m in series A financing yesterday from investors including Intel Capital, the corporate venturing unit belonging to semiconductor manufacturer Intel, and venture capital firm Canaan Partners.
Additional funding was provided by the founders of Happiest Minds, including Ashok Soota, formerly co-founder of IT consultancy MindTree, who will serve as executive chairman. Neither asset management firm the Carlyle Group nor technology, media and investment firm the International Data Group participated in the round, despite being touted as possible backers in September.
Launched in August, Happiest Minds provides an IT suite for businesses that combines design, implementation, testing, infrastructure management and security tools to help them shift their computing systems to a post-cloud and social networking working environment.
Sudheer Kuppam, managing director of Intel Capital Asia Pacific, said: "Enterprises are witnessing spiralling technological and security challenges as collaboration becomes social, as user experience goes mobile, and as computing infrastructure and platforms migrate to the cloud. Happiest Minds’ cloud, mobility, and security solution architectures can accelerate market adoption of such disruptive technologies, with attendant benefits for the vendor ecosystem."
Happiest Minds plans to use the investment to expand its infrastructure while also hiring additional staff and increasing its sales and marketing efforts.