Ashok Soota, a pioneer of India’s information technology services industry, has headed three outsourcing companies including one of the nation’s largest, Wipro Ltd., and taken two of them public. Happiest Minds Technologies' was the latest startup, which was oversubscribed 151 times and was founded in the year 2011 when he was 68. The Rs 700-crore initial public offer (IPO) of his IT service company, making it the eighth biggest IPO of the last decade. The IPO of the Mumbai-headquartered digital IT services provider was subscribed 351.5 times by non-institutional investors and 77.4 times by Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) during September 7-9. Retail demand for the issue was strong as well, garnering 70.94 times subscription. Happiest Minds, which gets almost all of its revenue from digital services, is one of two IPOs this week to woo Indian investors. About 13 years ago, he took his previous company, Mindtree, to an IPO, and that issue was oversubscribed 103 times.
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