Some major changes are being witnessed at Lightspeed Venture Partners, which is a company that invests in startups to help them grow and flourish. One of the shocking changes is the exit of Abhishek Nag, who worked with the Indian segment of the company. Another exit is of Vaibhav Agrawal, who worked with the American part of the company.
Nag’s LinkedIn profile reveals he left Lightspeed India in March and has joined 360 One in Mumbai. Agrawal is learned to have started his own company. He left the Lightspeed’s US segment around three years. However, the company hired Vivek Gambhir and Kevin Aluwi some three years before to help it grow in India as well as in other Southeast Asian countries.
Lightspeed was founded in 2008. It has invested in several companies here in India including BYJU’S, Udaan, ShareChat, Razorpay and Innovacer. Not all the investments were fruitful like Udaan and ShareChat have not done well. Valuation of these companies has dropped too.
Udaan was worth $3.2 billion in 2021. Its value in 2023 was $1.8 billion. ShareChat was worth $5 billion earlier and now it has dropped too much.
Some companies have thereafter raised money by borrowing to bring a quick balanced instead of getting funds from investors. BYJU’S had to sell its shares at a much lower price.
However, Lightspeed India stated has made a good profit by selling its shares in OYO and ItzCash. It has raised about $1.6 billion since 2015 from investors. The recent departures of Nag and Agrawal reveals the company is going through a tough time.
Lightspeed Venture Partners Company Details
Founded: 2000
Founder: Barry Eggers, Christopher Schaepe, Ravi Mhatre, Peter Nieh
AUM: $25 Billion
Comapnies they invested in: Navam, CATO, affirm, Faire, Nutani, Rubrik, Stripe, Wiz, Epic Games, more
Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, United States
