BENGALURU: Infosys has begun discussions for what will be its first investment in an Indian venture capital fund — Stellaris Venture Partners — according to four people aware of the development. The software services company could invest up to $15 million in the fund, launched by a team of venture capitalists, who are aiming for a final corpus of $100 million from both local and global investors.The Infosys investment — from its $500-million Innovation Fund set apart for early-stage investments — will mark the second such deal by the company in a venture capital fund. In December 2015, it backed Silicon Valleybased early-stage venture capital firm Vertex Ventures.Infosys investment — from its $500-million Innovation Fund set apart for early-stage investments — will mark the second such deal by the company in a venture capital fund. In December 2015, it backed Silicon Valleybased early-stage venture capital firm Vertex Ventures.“Infosys will not be the anchor investor in the (Stellaris) fund,” said a company executive familiar with the talks, terming the discussions still early. Since Chief Executive Officer Vishal Sikka unveiled plans for startup investments by India’s second-largest software exporter in January 2015, the company has made seven direct startup investments.Stellaris, set up by Alok Goyal, Rahul Chowdhri and Ritesh Bangalani who were formerly partners at India-based Helion Venture Partners, aims to invest in earlystage consumer internet and software startups. Goyal is a SAP veteran who quit as chief operating officer of the German software maker’s Indian unit in 2013 to join Helion. Sikka was earlier an executive board member at SAP.The negotiations with Stellaris are being led on the Infosys side by Ritika Suri, head of the Innovation Fund, who is also a former SAP executive.“I’m afraid we will not be able to comment on our ongoing fundraising,” said Banglani of Stellaris in an email response. An Infosys spokeswoman declined to comment.Stellaris, is also reaching out to “a lot of wealth managers who manage money for large family offices,” said a fifth person familiar with the fund’s plans.“They have also been reaching out to LPs of Helion Venture Partners where they are getting good traction.” Limited partners (LPs) to have backed Helion include Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and endowments of universities like Stanford and Princeton.The discussions between Infosys and Stellaris come at a time when Indian software services giants are engaging actively with startups and technology innovation globally.Last month, software exporter Wipro invested an undisclosed amount in Israel-based venture capital firm TLV Partners. Bengaluru-based Wipro has earmarked $100 million for startup investments and it has so far spent $15-20 million on at least seven investments. Tata Consultancy Services has backed the Rs 100-crore India Innovation Fund, promoted by industry body Nasscom and ICICI Knowledge in 2010, which is more of an industry effort to promote startups.But Indian corporates have largely been missing from the venture capital and startup boom of the last two years. Venture capital investments increased to 473 deals worth $5.4 billion in 2015—a record high, from 307 deals worth $2.3 billion in the year before, according to financial research platform VCCEdge. “The difference between corporates from US against India is the companies here are not forward looking,” said Anand Lunia, founder of seed-stage investment firm India Quotient, which has raised capital from both local and global investors.“There is a visceral hatred and discomfort among top executives at corporates because of disruption caused by startups. While they can laugh at Ola and Flipkart’s losses, but they cannot laugh at their business and market share,” he added.