Lightspeed Venture Partners, an investor in unicorns such as Oyo, Udaan, ShareChat, Innovacer, Byju’s, and Razorpay has appointed two industry veterans as ‘venture partners’ in its India and Southeast Asia team.
The Silicon Valley-based investor appointed Vivek Gambhir, former managing director of Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, and Kevin Aluwi, previously the co-founder and chief executive at Gojek, as venture partners, the firm said in a statement.
The two executives will help Lightspeed’s portfolio founders in building and scaling their startups. To be sure, the role would entail slightly different responsibility compared with ‘partners’, who typically take up board seats too.
“We are thrilled to welcome Vivek and Kevin into our growing teams in India and SEA (Southeast Asia),” said Lightspeed Partner Bejul Somaia. “In their roles as Venture Partners they will be collaborating with founders, shaping their journeys, and contributing to the growth and development of our portfolio companies in the region.”
Gambhir is currently the chairperson of the board at consumer electronics company boAt, which he led for more than two years as CEO. He was also a founding member of Bain & Company’s consulting operations in India.
Aluwi led operations at Indonesia’s ride-hailing and food delivery firm Gojek until 2022.
Lightspeed, which invests across stages, closed a $7.1 billion fund to invest in early- and growth-stage startups globally in 2022. It had dedicated a $500 million early-stage pool for its investments in India, while it planned to draw capital out of the $5 billion global growth capital pool for later stage investments.
The firm, which currently manages $25 billion in assets under management (AUM) globally, focuses on sectors such as enterprise software, fintech, consumer and commerce, while also looking at emerging areas including artificial intelligence, climate and space-tech.
