**OT** VeriFone's founder and former Indian chief form JV
K C Krishnadas
BANGALORE 12 MARCH
THE founder of transaction automation company VeriFone (later acquired by Hewlett-Packard), William Melton, and a former Indian head of VeriFone, Giri Khatod, have come together to found Worldwide Smart Net.
India is the first country where the services of this new California-based venture will be rolled out. The new venture is into electronic commerce and payment infrastructure, and in India, it expects to enable e-commerce for 50m households, 1m physical and 1m information merchants.
The venture has also floated a wholly-owned Indian subsidiary company, Worldwide Smart Net Pvt Ltd, based in Bangalore, with planned investments of Rs 50 crore. The subsidiary also sees the first investment to be made by Global Internet Ventures, a new venture capital company formed for making investments in the internet space. Mr Melton, who also founded CyberCash, is generally regarded as a pioneer in pushing the e-cash concept. Mr Khatod, who also worked in IBM and GTE, resigned from VeriFone in January.
economictimes.com |
