Kaushik Anand, India Head of CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), Google‘s parent Alphabet‘s growth equity investment fund, has quit the growth stage investment fund. He is set to join A91 Partners, an investment firm, as a partner early next year.
The report has been confirmed by both Kaushik Anand and CapitalG, as reported by Economic Times.
With the exit of Anand, there will be no material change and the fund will continue to invest in Indian entrepreneurs, as told by the spokesperson for CapitalG.
A spokesperson for CapitalG, said, “We have experimented with different operating models and have decided to return to a centralised office located in San Francisco. We look forward to continuing to invest in India.”
Some of CapitalG’s investments outside India include cab aggregator Lyft, robotic process automation startup UiPath, Snapchat, payments startup Stripe, and Airbnb.
After joining CapitalG in 2015, Anand led investments in various Indian startups including SaaS-based Freshworks, online car marketplace Cardekho, healthtech startup Practo, edtech startup Cuemath, and fintech startup Aye Finance.
He will continue to focus on technology, healthcare, and financial services sectors at A91 Partners.
Bengaluru-based A91 Partners was founded by three former Sequoia Capital Managing Partners Abhay Pandey, VT Bharadwaj, and Gautam Mago. Abhay Pandey is expected to officially join the fund in December.
Earlier in July 2018, it was reported that A91 Partners is raising its maiden ₹2,000 crore fund. The new firm will be looking to invest in companies across sectors including consumer, healthcare, financial services, and technology.
A91 Partners plans to start investing from next year in series B startups by cutting cheques of $10-30 million.
Over the years, a number of senior executives at big investment firms have gone on to start their own firms. These seasoned investment veterans are expected to further strengthen the Indian startup ecosystem.
In 2016, Mukul Singhal and Rohit Jain, fund managers from SAIF Partners had formed Pravega Ventures.
Also in 2016, three senior executives from Helion Venture Partners, Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal and Rahul Chowdhri had come together to launch the now popular Stellaris Venture Partners, a fund focused on technology-based startups.
In 2017, Fireside Ventures was launched by Kanwaljit Singh, a founding partner at Helion Venture Partners.