Sequoia India closes sixth fund at $695 million
BENGALURU: Silicon Valley’s heavyweight venture capital fund Sequoia Capital India has closed its sixth India-focussed fund at $695 million. The fund will focus on early and growth stage investments in the technology, consumer and healthcare sectors across India and South East Asia.
Sequoia Capital India’s new fund comes two years after it last raised $930 million for its previous India-focused fund and will take its total assets under management to $3.9 billion.
The fund had originally planned to raise a corpus of $1 billion as reported by ET in January but later cut down on the size of the corpus. Instead, Sequoia is raising a massive $8 billion global growth fund through which it will also do late stage investments in India and Southeast Asia.
The closure of the fund comes at a time when the firm has seen several exits in senior management. Besides VT Bharadwaj and Gautam Mago who left the firm since last year, Abhay Pandey who has led some of the key consumer focussed investments for the firm has also left Sequoia Capital India to focus solely on consumer-based investments.
It is not however not clear whether Pandey will join his former colleagues Bharadwaj and Mago who are in talks to raise a Rs 2000 crore fund called A91 Partners.
While Pandey has exited the fund, Abheek Anand who led the fund’s investments in Money Tap and Grofers will be elevated as Managing Director and will focus on investments in SE Asia.
With this, the fund will have five managing directors overall with Anand and Shailendra Singh based out of Singapore while Mohit Bhatnagar, GV Ravishankar and Shailesh Lakhani will be based in India. Singh will continue to look at investments in both India and Southeast Asia.
SE Asia accounts for 20-30% of Sequoia India's investments, by value, and the new fund is likely to see the same trajectory continue.
Sequoia Capital India’s new fund comes two years after it last raised $930 million for its previous India-focused fund and will take its total assets under management to $3.9 billion.
The fund had originally planned to raise a corpus of $1 billion as reported by ET in January but later cut down on the size of the corpus. Instead, Sequoia is raising a massive $8 billion global growth fund through which it will also do late stage investments in India and Southeast Asia.
The closure of the fund comes at a time when the firm has seen several exits in senior management. Besides VT Bharadwaj and Gautam Mago who left the firm since last year, Abhay Pandey who has led some of the key consumer focussed investments for the firm has also left Sequoia Capital India to focus solely on consumer-based investments.
It is not however not clear whether Pandey will join his former colleagues Bharadwaj and Mago who are in talks to raise a Rs 2000 crore fund called A91 Partners.
While Pandey has exited the fund, Abheek Anand who led the fund’s investments in Money Tap and Grofers will be elevated as Managing Director and will focus on investments in SE Asia.
With this, the fund will have five managing directors overall with Anand and Shailendra Singh based out of Singapore while Mohit Bhatnagar, GV Ravishankar and Shailesh Lakhani will be based in India. Singh will continue to look at investments in both India and Southeast Asia.
SE Asia accounts for 20-30% of Sequoia India's investments, by value, and the new fund is likely to see the same trajectory continue.