NEW DELHI: IT industry veteran Ganesh Natarajan, who has donned an investor’s hat post his retirement from Zensar has recently backed Studio Coppre, a Pune-based all-women’s startup which is working towards the cause of copper artisans in Maharashtra and other parts of the country.

Natarajan told that there are currently two types of ventures that he is backing. “One is where we will do a majority investment like building a digital platform for learning and that is still being finalised. The other is like Studio Coppre, where we have taken a minority position but not less than 15%,” he said.

Natarajan added that the idea is to help the group, which is led by a team trained in specialised design skills, to run businesses by putting design thinking into integrating all the artisans.

After tapping the domestic market, with tie up with firms such as Fabindia, Studio Coppre is now targeting the international market too, its founder and lead designer, said Rashmi Ranade.

Set in 2014, Coppre had got seed funding from Forbes Marshall Foundation, Pune before Natarajan’s firm invested in them. It had revenues of Rs 1.5 crore at the end of March 2016 and Ranade said they are hoping to double it next year. “We are already working with 15-18 retail partners in India such as Fabindia, Baaya Design in Mumbai, Kamala in Delhi etc. Now we need to look at exports since the international hand-crafted market is growing year-on-year.”

Ranade, who is a specialist in product design from IIT-Mumbai added that they have three more women in leadership roles apart from 12 people in operations. The company was earlier focusing on artisans in Maharashtra but is now expanding to clusters in UP and Rajasthan as well.

Natarajan, who retired earlier this year, is backing these ventures through his firm 5F World, set up in partnership with his wife, Uma Ganesh through which he wants to focus on the areas of skills, star tups and social ventures in the country. Natarajan said that he is also currently evaluating a third venture.

“If we look at the community of young graduates, these are people who get a job but then they leave. The attrition levels are as high as 35%. We want to see how it can be gamified and an engagement platform can be created to help the situation,” he said.

Natarajan had earlier  that he will invest between Rs 25-30 lakh in seven-eight companies this year who are working either in the skills or communities area, or in technologies like augmented reality, big data or analytics and he has earmarked about Rs 4 crore for the planned startup investments.

Source: The Economic Times