Infosys was founded on 2 July 1981 by seven
entrepreneurs, Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy,
Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopalakrishnan,
S. D. Shibulal, K Dinesh
and with N. S.
Raghavan officially being the first employee of the company. The
founders started the company with an initial investment of INR
10,000. The company was incorporated as "Infosys Consultants Pvt
Ltd." in Model Colony, Pune as the registered office.
Infosys headquarters in Bengaluru,
India
Infosys went public in 1993. Interestingly,
Infosys IPO was under subscribed but it was bailed out by US
investment banker Morgan
Stanley which picked up 13% of equity at the offer price of Rs. 95
per share. The share price surged to Rs. 8,100 by 1999. By the year 2000
Infosys's shares touched Rs. 310. This, before the catastrophic incident of September 11th, which caused share prices
to suddenly fall.
According to Forbes magazine, since listing on the Bombay Stock
Exchange till the year 2000, Infosys' sales and earnings compounded
at more than 70% a year.In the year 2000, President of
the United States Bill Clinton
complimented India on its achievements in high technology areas citing the
example of Infosys.Infosys will invest $100 million (Rs 440 crore) on
establishing a 20,000-seater campus in Shanghai.
In 2001, it was rated Best Employer in India by Business Today.Infosys was
rated best employer to work for in 2000, 2001, and 2002 by Hewitt Associates.
In 2007, Infosys received over 1.3 million applications and hired fewer than 3%
of applicants.
Infosys was the only Indian company to win the Global MAKE
(Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises) award for the years 2003, 2004 and 2005,
and is inducted into the Global Hall of Fame for the same