India's largest software exporter and the country's top mortgage lender do not have much to do with sports or education. But Tata Consultancy Services and HDFC have come together, nonetheless, to invest in a startup that is in the business of sports education.
The partnership, reminiscent of their equal JV Intelenetfor business process outsourcing more than a decade ago, has been enabled by Susir Kumar and the team that built Intelenet into one of India's most prominent BPOs.
This time, Kumar and the Intelenet team of a score of executives came up with the idea for Kids Out Of Home. Convincing HDFC to show faith in the management team a second time was easy. So it was with N Chandrasekharan, the CEO of TCS, a fitness buff who runs marathons. Both of them invested 15 per cent each in KOOH.
"Basically what we are doing is asking schools to outsource their sports education to us," said Kumar, 47, who is the chief executive officer of Serco Global Services, the new avatar of Intelenet after it was acquired for more than Rs 2,700 crore by the UK-based back office company last year. "It is a commercial venture with a cause; philanthropy for profit. Otherwise it won't work," Kumar remarked.
KOOH will compete with startups such as Edusports, Leapstart and Sportseed, which provide outsourced sports education for schools - something that is emerging as a lucrative business.
Keki Mistry, the vice-chairman and CEO of HDFC, said he believes in KOOH's vision to take structured curriculum, technology and infrastructure to schools to motivate children to come out and play.
Independent Team to Run Firm
"While as a group HDFC has been associated with sports franchisees, we were keen to find a way to create impact at a grassroot level," said Keki Mistry.
Two of the co-founders who were part of the founding team at Intelenet, Prabhu Srinivasan and Ramachandra Panickar, are on the board of the new venture along with Kumar. In 2007, they were involved in the largest management buyout deal in the country when the management team of Intelenet, backed by private equity firm Blackstone, bought out Barclays Bank and HDFC.
All the co-founders will continue in their existing roles at Serco and leave the management of the new venture to an independent team. Wellknown cricket personality Ajit Wadekar and former Delhi cricket player Sanjeev Sharma have joined as advisors.
KOOH will draw on lessons from the business process outsourcing industry to train coaches in areas such as voice accents and child psychology. The coaches will also undergo training at the Lausanne, Switzerland-based Centre for Sports Education founded by the International Olympic Committee. Discussions with a private equity fund are at an advanced stage, Kumar said. If a deal fructifies, the fund could hold 15 per cent. The 20 cofounders, including Kumar, will hold the rest.
The idea for the venture came to Kumar and his team when they were brainstorming about how best to manage the slowdown in 2008. "We thought of the big things India would need in the next 10 years and came up with three areas: food, primary health and education. Again, in education there are a lot of people and brick & mortar ventures. Then, we thought about the challenges our children face and one of them was sports."
The partnership, reminiscent of their equal JV Intelenetfor business process outsourcing more than a decade ago, has been enabled by Susir Kumar and the team that built Intelenet into one of India's most prominent BPOs.
This time, Kumar and the Intelenet team of a score of executives came up with the idea for Kids Out Of Home. Convincing HDFC to show faith in the management team a second time was easy. So it was with N Chandrasekharan, the CEO of TCS, a fitness buff who runs marathons. Both of them invested 15 per cent each in KOOH.
"Basically what we are doing is asking schools to outsource their sports education to us," said Kumar, 47, who is the chief executive officer of Serco Global Services, the new avatar of Intelenet after it was acquired for more than Rs 2,700 crore by the UK-based back office company last year. "It is a commercial venture with a cause; philanthropy for profit. Otherwise it won't work," Kumar remarked.
KOOH will compete with startups such as Edusports, Leapstart and Sportseed, which provide outsourced sports education for schools - something that is emerging as a lucrative business.
Keki Mistry, the vice-chairman and CEO of HDFC, said he believes in KOOH's vision to take structured curriculum, technology and infrastructure to schools to motivate children to come out and play.
Independent Team to Run Firm
"While as a group HDFC has been associated with sports franchisees, we were keen to find a way to create impact at a grassroot level," said Keki Mistry.
Two of the co-founders who were part of the founding team at Intelenet, Prabhu Srinivasan and Ramachandra Panickar, are on the board of the new venture along with Kumar. In 2007, they were involved in the largest management buyout deal in the country when the management team of Intelenet, backed by private equity firm Blackstone, bought out Barclays Bank and HDFC.
All the co-founders will continue in their existing roles at Serco and leave the management of the new venture to an independent team. Wellknown cricket personality Ajit Wadekar and former Delhi cricket player Sanjeev Sharma have joined as advisors.
KOOH will draw on lessons from the business process outsourcing industry to train coaches in areas such as voice accents and child psychology. The coaches will also undergo training at the Lausanne, Switzerland-based Centre for Sports Education founded by the International Olympic Committee. Discussions with a private equity fund are at an advanced stage, Kumar said. If a deal fructifies, the fund could hold 15 per cent. The 20 cofounders, including Kumar, will hold the rest.
The idea for the venture came to Kumar and his team when they were brainstorming about how best to manage the slowdown in 2008. "We thought of the big things India would need in the next 10 years and came up with three areas: food, primary health and education. Again, in education there are a lot of people and brick & mortar ventures. Then, we thought about the challenges our children face and one of them was sports."
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