Google invests in Indian outsourcing company
By Tech Hound
 
California-based Internet giant Google that powers search, email, videos on the Internet has made its largest investment in an Indian company Cnergyis. Cnergyis, is a Mumbai-based company, and does tax, HR and payroll-related work for companies who outsource this to cut costs and/or who do not want to have the headache of in-house administrative work.

Google's investments in Indian companies is done through Seedfund (a start-up fund in which Google invested an undisclosed sum) and has pumped in Rs. 80 lakhs ($2 million). Seedfund is an investment fund managed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Mahesh Murthy, Pravin Gandhi, Kanwal Rekhi, KB Chandrashekhar, Motorola Ventures and others to fund technology and Internet companies. When contacted, Google spokespeople did not respond to emails. Similarly, Google has pumped $3.9 million into biotech researcher 23andMe and another $1 million investment into Comsenz, an online community network technology provider in China.
 
Apart from Seedfund, Google along with the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) promoted by billionaire investor George Soros, Omidyar Network invests in start-up companies in emerging markets like India and others. Recently, they created a new $17 million small to medium enterprise Investment Company for India to create job opportunities and spur greater economic participation for a larger segment of the billion strong population. 
 
At the launch of this initiative Sonal Shah head of Google.org had said that while small businesses in rich countries represent half of GDP, they account for a much lower portion in developing economies like India. "Our goal is to increase the flow of capital to small companies in India," she said. Google wants to cash in on the large number of small businesses, which helps to diversify its revenue stream, according to many observers.
 
Cnergyis was started in the year 2000, at the height of dotcom mania as a company, with a turnover of Rs. 1.7 crore till date and a thousand strong employee base with offices in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. "With this funding we will get access to Google's technology with which we can build a product to manage and process tax filing for companies and HR-related requirements," said Prasad Rajappan, founder, Cnergyis and an ex Reliance employee.  
 
With this money we can build a technology platform for payroll processing and other HR jobs that can offer software-as-a-service, he says. The company is targeting to process 5 million pay slips per month by 2012. There are even plans to offer these services through 3000 kiosks and a virtual network connecting all tax or statutory offices will be connected. Call this Google's answer to Intel and Cisco's venture capital attempts to dominate the Indian technology landscape.