Lakhani, joined Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia) in 2007, while Anand, moved from Silicon Valley and joined the firm in 2013. The VC firm has ten other managing directors, or senior investment partners at the firm. These are Shailendra Singh, Rajan Anandan, Mohit Bhatnagar, Ishaan Mittal, GV Ravishankar, Harshjit Sethi, Tejeshwi Sharma, Sakshi Chopra, Ashish Agrawal and Rohit Agarwal who is based in Singapore.
Sources in the know told ET that the investment firm, which has backed the likes of Razorpay, Cred, Unacademy, Pine Labs and Truecaller, could see more managing directors leaving the firm over the course of the next year.
In April last year, managing director Piyush Gupta left Peak XV to launch his own secondaries-focused investment firm. To be sure, Gupta, despite being a managing director, was not a part of the investment team.
Following this, Peak XV Partners’ chief public policy officer Shweta Rajpal Kohli and chief marketing officer Gayatri Vasudeva Yadav also quit from the firm. “As my time at Peak XV/Sequoia India reaches 17.5 years, I’ve decided it’s the right moment to step back from the firm. It has been an incredible journey—one that began in August 2007, when India’s startup ecosystem was in its infancy, to today, where it stands as one of the most vibrant in the world. I wouldn’t have traded this courtside seat for anything,” Lakhani wrote in a post on X.
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Announcing his departure in a LinkedIn post, Anand wrote: “I’m taking some time to recharge and spend quality time with my family—the first real career break I’ve ever had. I’m also looking forward to immersing myself in San Francisco, my former home and the global epicenter of AI, and reconnecting with old friends and colleagues. Along the way, I hope to support founders in any way I can—through angel investing, advising, and collaboration”.
Sources said that while Lakhani and Anand will no longer have full time investing roles, they will continue to hold their seats on some of the boards of their portfolio companies.
US technology publication TechCrunch was the first to report about their exits.
Peak XV did not comment on the development.
Lakhani has led investments in several Peak XV Partners portfolio companies that have either gone public or are in the process of doing so. These include Ixigo, Truecaller, Zetwerk, Capillary Technologies and CarDekho. He has also led investments in startups such as OneCard, Porter and HealthKart.
Lakhani was also behind Peak XV’s investment in skincare startup Minimalist, which has been acquired by Hindustan Unilever – allowing the VC firm to score a Rs 810-crore exit.
Anand, who was co-leading the firm’s investments in Southeast Asia, has earlier backed startups including Grofers (now Zomato-owned Blinkit), Freo, Cuemath and Indonesian ecommerce platform Ula.
Following its split from Sequoia Capital, Peak XV Partners also decided to downsize its $2.85-billion fund by 16% in October last year.
