Vishal Bakshi, who has been with Goldman Sachs Group for the last 16 years, has quit the firm to float his own private equity (PE) firm Avatar Growth Capital Partners, according to his LinkedIn update.
Mint that first reported the development citing unnamed sources said Avatar Growth Capital is positioned as a mid-market private equity firm.
An IIM Ahmedabad grad, Bakshi had spent four years with ICICI Securities before doing MBA from Columbia Business School. He spent almost eight years with Goldman Sachs in New York and was involved in the IT and BPO related investment banking unit, before moving back to India in 2008.
He has been serving as a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Mumbai for the past seven years. Goldman Sachs has several people sporting managing director designation.
Bakshi has also been involved with some investment deals struck by the private equity unit of the financial services giant.
As a result, he served as director on the board of Sigma Electric, Max India, Den Networks and Antuit, all portfolio firms of Goldman Sachs. He had quit all these board positions in February this year.
He joins a growing list of PE professionals and investment bankers who have ventured out to start their own investment outfits.
Early last year, troubled home-grown private equity firm Avigo Capital Partners' managing director S Harikrishnan quit to float a public markets-focused PE firm.
Sunil Theckath Vasudevan, partner at home-grown private equity firm India Value Fund Advisors Pvt. Ltd, moved out to launch his own fund called Amicus Capital. He was later joined by former managing director of Carlyle, Mahesh Parasuraman.
In another such move, Heramb R Hajarnavis quit as the India head of the private equity practice at buyout major Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co in 2014, to float a new private equity firm called SeaLink Capital Partners.
Late last year, Nitish Aggarwal, director at IBOF Investment Management Pvt. Ltd, quit the mid-market PE firm and joined hands with Alok Gupta, former managing director at Headland Capital (formerly HSBC Private Equity), to start Alphaneo Private Equity.
Also, InVent capital, floated by founder and former managing director of IEP Gaurav Mathur has been in the market to raise capital for more than three years.
These executives seek to re-sketch the success of PE firms such as Multiples PE, CX Partners and Kedaara Capital. These PE firms were launched by professionals who worked for other larger outfits such as ICICI Venture, Citigroup Venture Capital International, Temasek and General Atlantic.
Kedaara, founded by Manish Kejriwal, who was the former India head of Singapore sovereign wealth management fund Temasek, was able to make the final close of its debut fund at $540 million, exceeding its original target of $500 million. This was the largest debut fundraise by an independent private equity firm out of India.
Last year, former ChrysCap managing director Gulpreet Kohli had raised a debut fund under Mylen Investment.
Early this month, Carpediem Capital told VCCircle it has mopped up two-thirds of the target amount in its debut mid-market-focused private equity fund.
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