Lightspeed partners Abhishek Nag, Vaibhav Agrawal quit (2024)

Lightspeed Venture Partners, which has backed startups such as Oyo, Udaan, Sharechat and Pocket FM, has seen two of its partners – Vaibhav Agrawal and Abhishek Nag – leaving the firm, according to multiple people aware of the matter.

While Agrawal, who is based in Silicon Valley, is set to launch his own venture firm, Nag has joined Mumbai-based 360 One (formerly IIFL Wealth & Asset Management) to lead early-stage investments, the sources said.

Recent high-profile exits in the venture capital industry include Sameer Brij Verma, who is set to leave Nexus Venture Partners, among other departures at Trifecta Capital, Lightbox and Orios, coinciding with the reset in the tech investing world globally.

Agrawal, who was with Lightspeed’s India partnership earlier, moved to its US fund three years ago, from where he left in 2023, one of the persons said.

Both Agrawal and Nag confirmed their departures to ET. Responding to queries, a Lightspeed spokesperson said, "Abhishek Nag has returned to his original passion for seed and angel investing, and we fully support his decision. Our commitment to sustaining our leading franchise in the region remains unchanged and we recently expanded the team to welcome highly experienced executives/founders such as Vivek Gambhir and Kevin Aluwi. We expect to welcome new additions to the team through 2024."

It has recently led large rounds such as the $103-million raise by audio platform Pocket FM in March, and a $41-million funding in artificial intelligence startup Sarvam AI.

In July 2022, Lightspeed raised $500 million for its fourth fund focused on investments in India and Southeast Asia.

Lightspeed’s large bets

However, some of the investment firm’s larger bets have not played out well. Lightspeed India has so far raised commitments for around $1.6 billion across four funds starting in 2015, and has returned over $1 billion in capital to its limited partners, or fund sponsors, so far.

Some of the portfolio companies on which it has taken larger bets -- including business-to-business ecommerce firm Udaan and vernacular social media platform ShareChat -- have seen valuations come down.

Bengaluru-based Udaan’s valuation fell to $1.8 billion following a December 2023 financing round of $340 million, which was largely a conversion of debt notes into equity with some fresh capital being infused. Lightspeed holds almost 40% stake in the company, which had a peak valuation of $3.2 billion following its January 2021 fundraise.

Similarly, ShareChat, which raised a $48-million convertible debt round in March this year, was earlier in discussions to raise primary capital at a valuation of $1-1.5 billion – down from its peak value of $5 billion. Lightspeed had first invested in the company in November 2016, with participation in follow-on rounds.

Edtech firm Byju’s, in which Lightspeed first invested in September 2016, has also seen its valuation plunge 99% from $22 billion.

Among the firm’s most notable exits are a partial stake sale in Gurugram-based Oyo – through which Lightspeed took home around $1 billion in cash from the sale of half of its stake in 2019 when founder Ritesh Agarwal executed a $1.5 billion share buyback. Its other key exits include ItzCash – sold to Ebix – where it made a 3-4x return.

VC churn

At Lightspeed, Agrawal had led the firm’s investments in Innovaccer, Apna.co and Zetwerk. Nag, who was at Lightspeed from 2022 till February this year, worked with content creator platform House of X and logistics tech company Airbound.

The departures come in the backdrop of several top executives and partners in the tech investment ecosystem leaving their firms.

These include Nexus Venture Partners’ Sameer Brij Verma, who is set to launch his own investment fund. Venture debt fund Trifecta Capital’s partner Sandeep Bapat also resigned recently to join private equity firm Singularity Growth as its new co-chief investment officer and senior partner.

In September 2023, three partners at early-stage venture capital firm Lightbox Ventures – Siddharth Talwar, Jeremy Wenokur and Prashant Mehta – resigned.

Similarly, two managing partners at early-stage investment firm Orios Venture Partners, Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri, also stepped down in August.

The churn in the industry has also seen some executives joining venture investors. These include The Good Glamm Group cofounder Priyanka Gill who moved to Kalaari Capital in February this year, and Shiprocket cofounder Vishesh Khurana who is set to lead the India fund of Silicon Valley-based Tribe Capital.