Exclusive: Kris Gopalakrishnan to back crowdsourced software testing startup 99Tests

Infosys co-founder and its former CEO, Kris Gopalakrishnan and other individual investors are in the final stages of investing in Bangalore-based startup NinetyNine Tests Software Pvt Ltd, which runs an online community offering crowdsourced software testing services, sources privy to the development said.

Founded by Praveen Singh in 2010, it provides on-demand access to freelance software testers. 99Tests claims it has over 12,000 testers across the world on its platform and has served testing needs of various companies including consumer internet companies such as Flipkart, Practo, Cleartrip, Ibibo, Foodpanda, BlueStone and a few US-based companies including Ennovent and NetConference.

For more details on the funding click here.

When contacted, 99Tests founder & CEO, Singh, said: "We are about to close this round with funding from Kris Gopalakrishnan and a Japanese investor." He decline to share the funding amount or the name of the other investors.

Praveen Singh, who was part of VMLogix, the company founded by serial entrepreneur and investor Ravi Gururaj, left the firm when it was acquired by Citrix in 2010 and started working on his own software testing venture. He was later joined by Naveen Kumar, an IIT Mumbai graduate who worked briefly with SAP and ran his own startup Foodtang.

After stepping down from Infosys board last year, Gopalakrishnan who along with his wife and daughter owns shares worth Rs 8,492 crore ($1.3 billion) as on date, has invested in handful of startups besides promoting scientific research and entrepreneurship activities.

He has also invested in Freshworld, a Bangalore-based farm-to-fork fruit and vegetable delivery startup; JetSynthesys, a digital technology business and Uniphore Software Systems, a Chennai-based speech recognition solutions company.

Gopalakrishnan recently gave away Rs 30 crore to set up three brain research chairs in Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) and is involved in startup mentoring activities in Bangalore, Kerala and Visakhapatnam.