Raul Rai, one of the four managing directors of private equity firm Fidelity Growth Partners, has quit to join retail firm Eicher Goodearth. Rai, who led investments in various sectors including technology, media, telecom, consumer and financial services at Fidelity Growth Partners, had joined the PE firm three years ago.
Rai had quit early this year, though this was not publicly announced. He is related to the Lalls, the promoters of Eicher.
An email query sent to Fidelity Growth Partners' spokesperson did not elicit any response. The firm now has three managing directors Kabir Narang, Prem Pavoor and Abhinav Sinha besides senior managing director Raj Dugar.
Efforts to contact Rai did not elicit any response. However, his LinkedIn profile is updated with the new job responsibility, which includes driving Eicher Goodearth's digital strategy and global e-commerce.
Rai joined Fidelity in 2011 from General Atlantic, where he led investments in technology, media, telecom and financial services space as its managing director.
Prior to that he spent over 10 years in investment banking covering the healthcare, technology, telecom and media sectors at Goldman Sachs, UBS and SG Cowen where his clients included large telecom and media companies, including Vodafone, Verizon, RIM, Red Hat, Olivetti and Dow Jones.
Prior to joining General Atlantic, he served as managing director and global co-head of software technology investment banking at UBS Investment Bank. From 2000 to 2002, he served as director of corporate strategy and planning at Vizzavi Europe Ltd.
During his tenure at Fidelity, Rai served on the boards of payment solutions firm
MineralTree, education solutions company Classteacher, CloudByte Inc and also served as director of e-commerce firm Yebhi.com. Yebhi, which had been looking to raise fresh funds unsuccessfully, recently pivoted to become an aggregator for third party e-tailers.
He has also served on the board of VECV (a joint venture between Eicher Motors and Volvo).
Eicher Goodearth is a part of the Eicher Group, a significant player in Indian automotive industry. It represents the group's diversification into retail sector under the brand Goodearth. The firm sells home and lifestyle related products. It has around one dozen stores, including two in Singapore besides outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. The firm also runs its own e-commerce store through its site.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)