Cyrus Mistry sets up global startup fund

Mumbai: The billionaire brothers Cyrus and Shapoor Mistry have announced formation of Mistry Ventures LLP to incubate and fund the startup ecosystem. 

The announcement on Wednesday comes on the second anniversary of Cyrus' unceremonious salving by the Tatas as the group chairman. The new firm is jointly promoted by Cyrus and his elder brother Shapoor, both promoters of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which owns 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons.

Promoted by the fourth richest Indians (collectively), the new venture is flushed with cash. According to Forbes 2018 ranking, the Mistry family is the fourth richest in the country with a wealth over $18.7 billion, most of which is the notional value of their stake in the Tata group.

The new venture aims at providing strategic insights and advice to businesses, incubate new ventures and provide seed, early stage and growth capital to startups in the country as well and globally, a statement from the office of Cyrus Mistry said.

It is learnt that the Mistrys are ready to pump in hundreds of crores into the new venture, which will personally be handled by Cyrus himself. The new company also announced appointment of Ashish Iyer, senior partner and previously global leader for strategy practice at the Boston Consulting Group, to lead the firm as the chief executive, the statement said. 

"Iyer has worked with companies across sectors globally and brings deep expertise across domains and capabilities such as strategy, go-to-market, digital, innovation amongst others and I am very excited to have him on board," Cyrus was quoted as saying in the statement.