Here Are The Fund Managers Who Have Exited VC Firms This Year As the ecosystem evolves, the number of fund managers leaving VC firms to either launch a startup or a fund is also increasing

Managing Partners of Orios Venture Partners, Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri, recently resigned from the venture capital (VC) firm. "I move on to do something new and exciting soon. I believe India's golden years have begun and the recently concluded #G20 Summit has inspired me immensely of the true potential we have as a country and our place in the world," said Jain in a LinkedIn post.

While the exact reason behind their decision to quit is unclear, it is not the first time that we have seen investors exiting from VC firms to either launch a startup or a fund. And, this has been happening more frequently this year than in the past. Internationally too, we have seen many departures this year. A recent case in point is Dutch-listed technology investor Prosus NV and its South African parent Naspers Bob van Dijk stepping down as chief executive officer from both companies this month.

Here is the list of such high-profile departures of fund managers in India.

Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri from Orios Venture Partners

As mentioned above, the partners recently quit the firm. Jain joined Orios Venture Partners in 2017 as a venture partner and was promoted to the role of managing partner in 2018, whereas, Suri had led investments, fundraising, and investor relations at Orios, which he joined in January 2019. With these two high-profile exits, Orios is now left with a single managing partner Rehan Yar Khan.

Brij Bhasin from Rebright Partners

This month, Brij Bhasin, a senior executive at Rebright Partners quit the Asia-focussed venture capital firm to work on his generative AI startup, Snow Mountain AI. He led the India investments for Rebright Partners including MedikaBazaar, LetsTransport, MediBuddy, Eggoz, Virohan, among others. Bhasin joined Rebright Partners in January 2015 as a principal for India investments. He was promoted to the role of general partner in January 2019. He is also a founding team member of the startup accelerator GSF Accelerator. According to news reports, he was also the advisor and part of the early team at Little Eye Labs which was acquired by Facebook.

Siddharth Talwar, Jeremy Wenokur and Prashant Mehta from Lightbox Ventures

According to an ET report, Siddharth Talwar, Jeremy Wenokur and Prashant Mehta, partners at early-stage VC firm Lightbox Ventures are leaving the firm. The report quoted sources and said that the executives at the fund were briefed about the imminent departure of the partners. It also said that the outgoing partners may set up a new fund. The partners had led investments in startups such as Dunzo, Melorra.

Avinash Raghava from Together Fund

In March this year, Avinash Raghava, a founding member of SaaSBOOMi and a well-known name in the Indian SaaS community, announced to move from Together Fund to focus on further building the SaaS community. Together Fund was founded in 2021 by Girish Mathrubootham, co-founder and CEO, of Freshworks and Manav Garg, CEO and founder, Eka Software Solutions in 2021. "As the global interest in India SaaS continues to rise, we (as part of the SaaSBOOMi founding team) realized the need for a full-time leadership role at the organization and creating an independent governance council," Mathrubootham said in a blog post titled, "Goodbye Avinash…Welcome Avinash".

While the number of high-profile resignations in VC firms has been high this year, we have seen some managers exit in the past as well.

Here are some of the prominent fund manager departures in the past:

• In 2022, Karthik Prabhakar resigned from Chiratae Ventures to launch his fund, Peer Capital.
• In 2018, Sequoia Capital India managing director Abhay Pandey left.
• In 2016, Matrix Partners India's co-founder Rishi Navani quit the firm.
• In 2016, Alok Goyal, Rahul Chowdhri and Ritesh Bangalani quit Helion Venture Partners to create Stellaris.
• In 2016, Bala Srinivasa left Kalaari Capital to start Arkam Ventures.