Ahmedabad, Feb 18 (UNI) US-based venture studio DX.Partners, which focuses on building outcomes-driven economy through initiatives like co-founding companies and investing in start-ups, on Tuesday said that as part of it's plan to make Gujarat a digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) hub, it would invest USD 100 million (around Rs 720 crore) globally, focussing on the state, by next year.
Addressing a joint press conference here, ahead of the Gujarat trip of US president Donald Trump, Founder and Managing Director of the company Sundeep Sanghvi, it's managing partner Dharmesh Trivedi and Tejas Shah, said the company has planned to invest a total of 100 million dollars in Gujarat by next year.
It has so far in seven months, invested 1.4 million dollars in two tech-driven start ups in Gujarat and aims to invest in and build eight new groundbreaking start-ups by 2021 alone.
To help scale and grow these innovative companies, the firm's portfolio companies plan to hire over 200 tech professionals and invest millions of dollars within the next year alone, pushing for Gujarat to tap into the growing 1.9 trillion dollars global digital transformation market.
'Gujarat has no dearth of talent to make it a tech hub, especially that of AI and digital transformation like Bengaluru and Hyderabad. All it needed was a proper ecosystem for it and we would be doing that only,' they said.
Elaborating about the company's initiatives in Gujarat, Mr Sanghavi said, 'On February 22, DX.Partners will officially open the firm's newly designed India Operations in Ahmedabad.
Focus for the new office will be to serve DX.Partners' portfolio companies, ARInspect, DXFactor, DXHub, DXOutcomes, D2O Academy, DXEmpathy and eight other new startups, which the company will invest in and build, by the next calendar year alone.
These disruptive technology start-ups will conduct their India operations from this new office space and hire top data-driven talents in the region to fill data engineers, data scientists, machine learning engineers, devops engineers, cyber security specialists, software engineers, mobile developers, and other critical roles.
Headquartered in Washington DC, US, the company is the first-of-it's-kind venture studio ever, to be launched in Gujarat.
Explaining the reason to choose the state as their preferred business destination, Mr Trivedi said, 'We are very proud to make Gujarat our India headquarters. This will further concrete the business relations between the US and India, especially Gujarat.
'This state has an excellent talent pool available, yet the challenge remains to provide this talent access to a flourishing career that will allow them to stay in the region to grow their careers and families alike.
'Every year, a number of young and energetic people from Gujarat shift their base to other cities. Many of them are opting to work and settle in countries like US, Canada and Australia.
'We want to change this trend in Gujarat by retaining them here and providing them ample opportunities to grow further.
'Today, many believe that regions like Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and others, are better positioned to capitalise on IT talent due to the number of companies, who have opened offices and conducted business operations within their conductive ecosystem.
'Yet, we firmly believe that this is a short-sided view at long term growth and the digital transformation sector will be an industry that will quickly outpace other legacy sectors.
'Priming Gujarat today to capitalise on this disruption, will pay out in dividends within the region,' said Mr Shah, Managing Partner of DX.Partners in Gujarat.
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