Lightspeed Venture Partners’ India arm has elevated three of its senior executives as partners to boost its early-stage investment advisory team in a latest development.
The California-based venture capital fund has promoted Shuvi Shrivastava (Vice President), Pinn Lawjindakul (Vice President, Singapore office) and Rahul Taneja (Chief Business Officer) as partners to lead the investment firm’s early stage bets.
“At Lightspeed, we deeply believe that venture is a ‘team sport’ and that our culture, values and sense of purpose enable cohesion and collaboration in an insanely powerful way. Shuvi, Pinn and Rahul all make our team stronger and we couldn’t be more excited for our future, #together,” the VC fund said in a statement.
Shrivastava had joined the fund as an associate in 2015 and has been primarily overseeing internet-first businesses. She was instrumental in identifying several successful companies including Darwinbox, Uni, Pixxel, Rattle, Bhanzu and xFlo.
She was also a part of the investment team that deployed the first Lightspeed India fund across consumer and enterprise companies.
“Having experienced life as a founder herself, she has a deep appreciation for early-stage company-building, and brings that empathy to her work while holding up a mirror to founders and colleagues,” the VC fund said in an appreciation note for Shrivasyava.
Pinn had joined Lightspeed in early 2020 as the first member of the Southeast Asia (SEA) team.
Prior to Lightspeed, Pinn had worked alongside founders across all business life stages in China and India, most notably in companies such as Flipkart (sold to Walmart), Ola, Hike, Razorpay and Uxin (NASDAQ: UXIN).
“Pinn played a central role in establishing our office in Singapore and putting Lightspeed on the map in SEA,” the statement said.
Taneja had joined the investor in 2020 with responsibility for building the platforms team across functions like marketing, corporate development and portfolio oversight, while also actively supporting Lightspeed portfolio companies such as Udaan, Magicpin, Hubilo and Apna, among others.
He is also being credited to have gained significant operating experience in his previous stints across consumer goods and consumer internet industries including P&G, Philips, Snapdeal and Jabong.
Lightspeed, known for its bets on Byju’s, Oyo and ShareChat, expects to sharpen its focus on startups in the agritech
and healthtech sectors even as it will continue to invest in “enduring” themes like software-as-a-service (SaaS), fintech and edtech.
Also, the investor is equally bullish on Web 3.0 companies Lightspeed has invested over $1 billion in India since 2007. It sharpened its focus on the country after launching its India dedicated fund in 2015. It is currently investing out of its third fund of $275 million that was raised in 2020.
