Microsoft’s venture fund M12 opens India office

MUMBAI: M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, announced it has opened its India office in Bengaluru – the country’s technology hub. The local arm will pursue investment opportunities across the region, focusing on B2B software startups in areas of applied Artificial Intelligence (AI), business applications, infrastructure, security, and vanguard technologies.

M12 invests in disruptive enterprise software startups in Series A through C funding stages, targeting local and cross-border solutions. The Bengaluru office joins an M12 network that includes San Francisco, Seattle, London, and Tel Aviv.

Last month, Mint reported that Microsoft Corp. is supposedly negotiating an investment of as much as $2 billion in billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms Ltd, the digital unit of India’s most valuable company. The companies did not confirm the story.