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	In a bid to steer <keyword id="6355725" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Tata-Group">Tata Group</keyword>’s various business and functions, the sprawling conglomerate’s chairman Cyrus Mistry has tapped one of the world's eminent technocrats to head technology for the $100 billion empire. Gopichand Katragadda, GE India Technology Centre's managing director (MD) and a champion of innovation, is joining <keyword id="46894" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Tata-Sons">Tata Sons</keyword> as a <keyword id="2392588" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="group-chief-technology-officer">group chief technology officer</keyword> (CTO) from August 3 this year.
 Katragadda will report to Mistry and be responsible for technology at the group level. This is the first time that Tata Group has created the post of a <keyword id="2392584" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="group-CTO">group CTO</keyword>. <keyword id="1459977" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Gopichand-Katragadda">Gopichand Katragadda</keyword>, a consultant, professor and author, also serves on the advisory board of the <keyword id="118719" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="King-Abdullah">King Abdullah</keyword> University of Science and Technology. The <keyword id="213721" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Iowa-State-University">Iowa State University</keyword> electrical engineering PhD graduate has more than 30 publications and five patents to his credit. 

	According to a statement issued by Tata Sons, Katragadda will help the group management in research and development (R&amp;D), leveraging cross-company synergies, creating technology strategies for white spaces and acting as an evangelist for innovation across group companies.
 

	Katragadda has been leading GE's India technology centre for more than a decade, spearheading a team of over 5,000 engineers and scientists. The Bangalore-based unit is GE's largest R&amp;D outfit outside its home country of the US.
 Mistry, who took over as chairman of Tata Sons in 2012, has been putting together a new team comprising of mainly external hires. He brought on board former <keyword id="89024" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ernst-and-Young">Ernst and Young</keyword> executive NS Rajan as group HR head, former <keyword id="68635" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="London-Business-School">London Business School</keyword> professor <keyword id="255414" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Nirmalya-Kumar">Nirmalya Kumar</keyword> as <keyword id="2392585" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="group-head-of-strategy">group head of strategy</keyword> and ex-BSE CEO <keyword id="249906" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Madhu-Kannan">Madhu Kannan</keyword> as group head of business development. (Image: The Economic Times)

Cyrus Mistry Hires Gopichand Katragadda As Group CTO Of Tata Sons

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Do you have an idea that could disrupt the current market dynamics? If yes, this will help you. One of India's largest conglomerates, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Aditya+Birla+Group">Aditya Birla Group</a> will establish a dedicated fund for investing between $2 and $10 million in disruptive ideas across the areas of financial services, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=healthcare+">healthcare</a> and retail. 
 
Yes, you heard it right, disruptive ideas! A person directly familiar with the matter has confirmed it to the Economic Times. 
 
The group will finance this startup-focused initiative. Umesh Adhikary, president of corporate strategy at Aditya Birla Management Corporation, will lead the group’s initiative which will be announced in a few weeks. 
 
According to the person mentioned above, the conglomerate, with revenue of around $40 billion, has already approached top venture capital executives to be a part of the initiative. 
 
This is not new for top conglomerates in India. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Tata+Group+">Tata Group</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Reliance+Industries+">Reliance Industries</a> have already started looking at startups working on ideas that have the potential to disrupt current market dynamics in the areas of their business interests. 
 For example, Reliance partnered with <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> Ventures last year to initiate a startup accelerator, GenNext Innovation Hub. 
 Apart from <keyword id="6355725" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Tata-Group">Tata Group</keyword> CTO <keyword id="1459977" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Gopichand-Katragadda">Gopichand Katragadda</keyword>, who has started tapping into the Bengaluru startup hub, group's chairman emeritus <keyword id="6360722" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="ratan-tata">Ratan Tata</keyword> himself has become a one-man VC firm. 
 The $100 billion group has already invested in around a dozen startups over 12 months, including <keyword id="874458" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Xiaomi">Xiaomi</keyword>, the world's second most valuable startup after Uber. 
 
Rishikesha Krishnan, director and professor of strategy at IIM-Indore is of the view that the move underscored a realisation by these conglomerates that there's value being created outside. 
 
New industries will come every day and the ultimate route is to become an investor, said Krishnan. 
 
However, as these conglomerates tap into the disruptive world of startups, they face challenges. "It's not like an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Alibaba">Alibaba</a>, which backs Paytm with the required understanding. Startups are also looking beyond just money while choosing an investor," he added. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

The Birla Group is getting ‘Disruptive’ about its investments

<ul><li>Upside has raised its seed round from Endiya Partners, Vijay Kedia and others </li><li>It relies on artificial intelligence algorithms to help its customers create stock portfolios </li><li>The company claims to have a increased its asset under management by 10 times in the last one year</li></ul> Indian investment management platform Upside has raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round led by early-stage investor Endiya Partners. Veteran stock market investor Vijay Kedia, Quantum Advisors’ Ajay Nanavati and Myelin Foundry’s Gopichand Katragadda also participated in this round. Founded in 2017 by Kanika Agarrwal, Nikhil Hooda, and Atanuu Agarrwal, Upside is a portfolio management service (<keyword id="114345" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="PMS">PMS</keyword>) that relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms to invest in the Indian stock markets. The company was in beta mode for over a year and was officially launched in July 2019. The company claims to have delivered about 71% cumulative returns to the investors registered on the platform since its official launch. It further claims that its assets under management (<keyword id="135675" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="aum">AUM</keyword>) has grown over 10 times in the last one year to over ₹55 crore with funds from several high networth individuals (<keyword id="50379" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="HNI">HNI</keyword>) and family offices. Now, Upside aims to add over 1,000 HNIs, family offices and institutional investors to its list, and grow its AUM to ₹1,000 crore. “We believe the <keyword id="3658" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>n asset management industry is in its early days with single digit penetration of household wealth. Technology and rules-based investing already dominates mature markets; in fact, the top 5 hedge funds in the world are quantitative funds [which use quantitative analysis, instead of human judgement]. 5-10 years from now this will play out in India too and we are excited to be at the forefront of this movement,” the company’s cofounder Atanuu Agarrwal said. How does Upside work? Upside was built on the belief that technology will make better investing decisions than humans in the long term as machines are unbiased, unemotional and unaffected by the market euphoria. The company has developed AI and ML algorithms that run over 50 million iterations to generate a portfolio of 15-20 stocks for its customers. It automatically diversifies the customer’s portfolio and lowers the risk. As per Upside’s website, it does not invest more than 10% of the customer’s capital in any one stock or more than 35% in any one industry. It also optimises and rebalances portfolio every quarter as companies publish their financial results. The company also pushes for human interventions and allows AI analysts to do manual checks on corporate governance in order to ensure that the listed companies are reporting their financials accurately. Indians get a taste of personal finance <keyword id="2461546" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="FinTech">Fintech</keyword> turned out to be the most funded segment of 2020, as people switched to digital modes of transaction to minimise the exposure to Covid-19 virus. As per an Inc42 Plus report, fintech startups raised over<a href="https://inc42.com/buzz/9-4-bn-funding-13-unicorns-indian-startups-record-blockbuster-5-months/"> $2.1 billion in 2020</a>. Interestingly, Indian fintech startups already crossed this figure in the first five months of 2021 and is expected to close the year with its highest funding to date. Not only investors, but customers too have been particularly attracted towards digitised personal finance solutions. According to an AppsFlyer<a href="https://www.appsflyer.com/resources/others/finance-app-marketing-global/"> report</a>, Indians downloaded the most number of finance apps between October 2020 to March 2021. The top three mega markets -- India, Brazil and Indonesia -- made up almost half of the global number of downloads. Overall, fintech apps were downloaded about 2.7 billion times in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region between the first quarter (January-March) of 2019 and the first quarter of 2021.

Personal investment platform Upside AI raises $1.2 million in seed funding to help Indians make money

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/52120059.cms" /><a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=tata+sons&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Tata Sons</a> is going to tie up with UK and US colleges such as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=harvard&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Harvard</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=stanford&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Stanford</a> to build <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=innovation&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">innovations</a>. 
 The students will work with the Tata group technology team-led by Gopichand Katragadda on <keyword id="6433408" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="innovations">innovations</keyword>, majorly on computation and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=data+processing&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">data processing</a>, materials, coating, casting and vehicle propulsion, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=communications&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">communications</a>, engines and hybrids, fuels and controls. 
 
The Tata group has doubled published patents from about 3,500 at end of 2013 to about 7,000 at 2015-end. 
 
The group wants to push technology in energy, food and wellness, digital consumer products and services and digital factory and fleets. 
 
At its Tata Innovista programme, held annually by the Innovation Forum, it said there were over 1,900 implemented innovations from Tata companies under the Promising Innovations category in the past year.

UK, US colleges to research with Tata group for latest innovations soon

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/52386910.cms" /> The first <keyword id="6358815" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="tech">tech</keyword> product of Tata would be rolled out soon. <keyword id="46894" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tata-Sons">Tata Sons</keyword>' Group Technology and Innovation Office (GTIO) is targeting to rollout the first of the four high-tech products it is working on in the next two years, a top official told PTI. "All the projects that we undertake will take three to five years from start to finish... You will see a rollout in the next two years," Tata Sons' Group Technology Officer Gopichand Katragadda told PTI. 

	He said GTIO is working on four specific products – a smartwatch for industrial workers being tested on Tata Steel's workforce, a drone-based pesticide spraying system, a factory and fleet analytics system, and an advanced material called graphene.
 

	The salt-to-software conglomerate is the biggest spender on research and development among the large companies in the country. Last year, it had spent 2.7 per cent of its USD 110 billion revenue on R&amp;D and innovation. Elaborating on the products, he said graphene will take longer (about five years) before it is launched because of the higher degree of complexities involved.
 

	The incubation of these products is being done by GTIO at Technology Development Centre at Bengaluru, which Katragadda described as an independent facility which supports collaborative working. GTIO has drawn people from group companies to work on each of these four products, he said, adding Tata Sons has provided system integrators and chief engineers.
 

	Three of the four product teams have ten people each, one is working together physically out of Bengaluru, while one team is collaborating virtually, he said. "It is definitely an experiment. It is a different experiment of bringing really large companies into a new working model together," Katragadda said.
 

	When it comes to the way forward for the products, he cited the case of the smartwatch where GTIO has already asked its team to create a business plan wherein it will operate as a startup. "You sweat like a startup entrepreneur to create success with the minimum amount of resources, but when you hit certain milestones, you will get a lot of attention and that attention will help you get a large company to invest.
 

	But you have to earn it," Katragadda said. He, however, said the work being done by GTIO is not business incubation per se but technology innovation. "When you are doing business incubation, the tech risk has been retired. We are in an area where the tech risk is not retired. GTIO is in the business of identifying those risks which are worth taking and retiring the technical risks.
 "Once the technical risks are retired, we will try to find an avenue to incubate the business. The fun part of it is that you get to work with latest technologies in an environment where there is a lot of creative freedom," he said. Till now, the group had a separate vehicle in <keyword id="6467042" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tata-Industries">Tata Industries</keyword> to spot and incubate new business ideas, but did not have a system where technologists worked on new products, he said. 
	 
	(Image credits: indiatimes)

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