Catamaran Ventures names ex-Infy executives as chairman, president

Ranganath will replace Infosys and Catamaran founder NR Narayana Murthy, who now becomes chairman emeritus of the investment firm.

Padaki, who replaces Ranganath, will be responsible for driving the firm’s investment management strategy to nurture ideas from entrepreneurs into business outcomes, Catamaran said in a statement.

A long-time aide of Murthy, Ranganath stepped down as chief financial officer of Bengaluru-based Infosys in 2018 after serving the company for 18 years. He has been president of Catamaran Ventures since October 2019.

Padaki will take over from Ranganath. He quit Infosys last month as executive vice president, group head of strategy and mergers & acquisition and chief risk officer, after working in the company for three decades.

Launched in 2009 with an initial corpus of $120 million, the fund currently manages over $1 billion across asset classes. It has investments in companies such as beverage maker Paper Boat, spacetech firm SpaceX, Acko Insurance and news aggregator Daily Hunt.

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“He (Ranganath) has helped the firm grow faster and emerge stronger as a key player in the market over the last few years,” Murthy said in the statement. “I am also very pleased to welcome Deepak. Catamaran will benefit from his experience and leadership as it prepares to scale in this next phase of its journey.”