According to Abhishek Nag’s LinkedIn profile, he left Lightspeed India last month and joined Mumbai-based 360 One (previously IIFL Wealth and Asset Management). According to a source, Silicon Valley-based Vaibhav Agrawal quit Lightspeed’s US fund last year to launch his new startup firm. Lightspeed, founded in 2008, is a multi-stage venture capital fund that has financed Indian juggernauts such as BYJU’S, Udaan, ShareChat, Razorpay, and Innovacer.
Abhishek Nag has resigned as a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners’ India unit, the latest in a string of high-level departures. Meanwhile, another partner at its US fund, Vaibhav Agrawal, has reportedly left the investing firm.
According to Nag’s LinkedIn profile, he left Lightspeed India last month to join Mumbai-based 360 One (previously IIFL Wealth & Asset Management), where he would handle early-stage investments.
According to an article in the Economic Times, Agrawal, who is headquartered in Silicon Valley, departed Lightspeed to launch his own venture capital company. According to the story, Agrawal joined Lightspeed’s US fund three years ago and will leave the venture capital firm in 2023.
Remarkably, the announcements of the departures coincide with the period of three months following the VC firm’s January recruitment of Vivek Gambhir and Kevin Aluwi as venture partners to accelerate its expansion endeavors in India and Southeast Asia.
Lightspeed is a multi-stage venture capital fund that was founded in 2008 and has supported Indian giants including BYJU’S, Udaan, ShareChat, Razorpay, and Innovacer. It led to Pocket FM’s $103 million investment in March and another $41 million deal in Bengaluru-based GenAI firm Sarvam AI in December 2023.
Udaan’s valuation fell significantly from its peak of $3.2 billion in early 2021 to $1.8 billion in December 20203 during its $340 million fundraising round. Similarly, ShareChat was claimed to be in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $1 billion to $1.5 billion, a far cry from its peak of $5 billion.
Due to a lack of financing, both firms have increased debt while laying off employees in large numbers. But the worst pick for the VC company has been BYJU’S, which recently launched a rights offering at a 99% valuation drop.
Lightspeed India’s only respite has been its announced partial pullout from OYO in 2019 and the sale of ItzCash to Ebix, which yielded a 3X-4X return.
The venture capital business has received over $1.6 billion in pledges across four funds since its inception in 2015.
Nag and Agrawal’s exits come as a series of prominent VC partners have resigned amid a deepening funding winter. Sameer Brij Verma of Nexus Venture Partners quit earlier this year to start a new firm. Following that, Sandeep Bapat, a partner at venture debt firm Trifecta Capital, left to join private equity firm Singularity Growth as co-chief investment officer and senior partner.
In the last year, there have been a number of high-level exits at other Indian venture capital and private equity firms, including Lightbox Ventures and Orios Venture Partners.
