sequoia capital: Sequoia India MD Amit Jain steps down to pursue entrepreneurship

Bengaluru: Sequoia Capital India’s Amit Jain is stepping down from his position as managing director to pursue entrepreneurship, the blue-chip venture capital firm confirmed in a series of tweets on microblogging site Twitter on Wednesday.

Jain, who joined Sequoia Capital India from global cab-hailing giant Uber in 2019, has been part of the venture firm’s growth-stage investment practice and was based out of Singapore.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Stanford University, Jain will continue with Sequoia India, as an entrepreneur-in-residence as he charts plans for his new venture.

“Amit joined us from Uber in 2019 and brought a world-class operator’s perspective to our investing teams. He has been an amazing contributor to so many startups, having led or co-led growth rounds and served on the board of scaled companies,” said Sequoia India as a part of a statement on Twitter.

“Amit is launching a startup with massive potential in an exciting category. He will stay on with us for some time as an Entrepreneur in Residence as he lays out the blueprint for his ambitious new idea. We will miss him, but couldn’t be more excited for what lies ahead,” added the venture capital firm.

Before joining Sequoia, Jain served as the head of Asia Pacific at Uber. He was also the president at Rent.com, a housing classified site based in Los Angeles and also worked at TPG Capital as well as McKinsey & Company. The news of Jain stepping down comes as Sequoia India is in talks to raise a $2.8 billion fund to bolster its startup investments in India as well as Southeast Asian geographies.

Last year, Sequoia Capital India promoted five of its executives to the position of managing director, in a bid to bulk up its leadership. Ashish Agarwal and Harshjit Sethi from the fund’s venture team, and Tejeshwi Sharma, Ishaan Mittal and Sakshi Chopra from the growth team were elevated to the MD level.

In July 2020, the global venture capital firm had said that it had received commitments totalling $1.35 billion for two new funds focused on India and Southeast Asia. This included an $825-million fund focused on investments towards growth-stage companies.

In January, ETtech reported that two of the most influential tech investors including SoftBank and Sequoia India
have signalled an impending softness in private valuations amid a major correction in the US public markets.

In a tweet, Sequoia India managing director Shailendra Singh said on Twitter that he was looking forward to a much-needed correction in the startup funding environment and that thankfully, conversations are back to focusing on revenues, products, unit economics, and saving dollars.

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