Oracle announced on Monday that it would invest $125 million in i-flex solutions based in India to fund its growth initiative.

The California-based enterprise software maker said the additional investment in i-flex solutions, which makes analytical software for the banking industry in Mumbai, would raise the firm's stake in i-flex from 52.5 percent to 55.1 percent. This comes at a time when i-flex was preparing to acquire Mantas Inc., a behaviour detection technology firm.

Earlier this month, the world's largest enterprise software maker announced that it had acquired Citigroup Venture Capital International's 41 percent ownership stake in i-flex where the financial term was not disclosed. Since acquiring its rival PeopleSoft, the firm had focused on the retail application sector evident through its purchase of Retek, a retail software maker and ProfitLogic, a pricing specialist.

The importance of providing software to the banking industry was not lost on the firm's CEO Larry Ellison.

"Banking is a strategic industry for Oracle, with nine out of the top 10 banks already running Oracle ERP applications,' said Ellison in a statement. Oracle's overall application strategy is to go beyond (enterprise resource planning) and offer customers richer industry-specific functionality. I-flex gets us there in banking.

As required by Indian law, Oracle will make a mandatory open offer to purchase up to an additional 20 percent of the shares outstanding from the remaining i-flex shareholders at the minimum price of the mandatory open offer.

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