This tech veteran in India, 79, is eyeing his third start-up IPO

Ashok Soota, who has worked with Wipro and Mindtree, aims to list Happiest Health in the next five years

Ashok Soota, executive chairman of Happiest Minds, in Bengaluru, India. Bloomberg

Ashok Soota, 79, has spent four decades in India’s technology industry, headed three prominent IT companies and took two of them public.

Now, he is taking his newest venture off the ground with a goal to list in five years.

When Mr Soota turns 80 in November, Happiest Health will be a rare Indian technology start-up with an octogenarian founder.

He is basing the start-up on his holistic view on health and well-being, while drawing inspiration from Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger — who are ploughing ahead in their nineties.

“They embody the canon that work is exercise for the mind,” Mr Soota said in an interview on the roof garden of his sweeping Bangalore home, seated amid flowering orchids and a large aquarium full of fish.

Located in the viridescent Koramangala neighbourhood, the residence isn’t far from where India’s IT outsourcing businesses first set up decades ago.

Mr Soota played key roles in building what’s become a $227 billion industry.

He was brought in to steer Wipro in 1984 and went on to make a success of its outsourcing business while largely staying in the shadow of its charismatic chairman, billionaire Azim Premji.

Mr Soota quit in 1999 to co-found rival IT services company Mindtree, bringing it to an initial public offering in 2007.

He then did a repeat by founding digital services-focused outsourcer Happiest Minds Technologies in 2011. As executive chairman, he led it to a public debut in 2020 amid the pandemic, entering billionaire ranks when its market value surpassed $2.5bn last year.

Ventures founded by Mr Soota have recently faced headwinds along with the broader tech sector. Happiest Minds, of which Mr Soota owns about 53 per cent, has lost a quarter of its value this year for a current market capitalisation of $1.8bn. Mindtree is down about a third.

On the surface, Mr Soota isn’t perturbed. His latest start-up, Happiest Health, aspires to be a Google-meets-WebMD-meets-Mayo Clinic venture that helps people navigate mental and physical health. It lets customers access health information that has thus far been hard to find, particularly on treatments and therapies melding western and eastern practices.

Happiest Health aims to eventually combine modern medicine and research with gentler therapies like Ayurveda, naturopathy, yoga and meditation via short videos, newsletters, webinars and paid-for events.

Bootstrapped by Mr Soota, the company has 90 employees, including doctors, scientists and writers.

Mr Soota is building the business based on his background in overseeing hundreds of thousands of employees and his experiences with their well-being, work-life balance and relationship issues.

“For decades, Ashok Soota spotted IT services trends and figured out how to stay ahead,” said Thomas George, president of researcher CyberMedia Research.

“He’s now chasing a new challenge.”

Mr Soota walks about 8 kilometres every morning followed by 30 minutes of laps in his pool. He also practices yoga a couple of times a week.