Google's South East Asia and India vice-president Rajan Anandan will leave the technology giant by the end of this month and join venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India as a managing director.
8 amazing years. 850million internet users across India and SEA. Many billions of revenue and fastest growing region in the world. Incredible team that thinks big and executes superbly. Thank you @GoogleIndia #GoogleSEA. Loved every minute.
"We are grateful to Rajan for his huge contribution to Google over the past eight years," Scott Beaumont, president of Google Asia Pacific, said in a statement. “His entrepreneurial zeal and leadership has helped grow the overall internet ecosystem in India and Southeast Asia, and we wish him all the best in his new adventures.”
Vikas Agnihotri, country director-sales, will replace Anandan in the interim, Beaumont added.
Shailendra Singh, managing director at Sequoia Capital, said in a separate statement that Anandan will devote his attention to the firm's recently-launched accelerator programme.
"He will join the leadership team at the firm, in addition to the six current Managing Directors, where he will focus on developing Surge into the world’s top scale-up programme for startups by acting as an investment advisor and mentor to the program’s founders," said Singh.
Anandan, 50, is one of the most prolific angel investors in India and has invested in more than 70 companies including Druva, Capillary Technologies, WebEngage, DataWeave, Instamojo and Frrole.
A mechanical engineer from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a postgraduate in engineering from Stanford University, Anandan started his career with consultancy firm McKinsey & Co. He worked there for a decade and rose through the ranks to become a partner. Anandan then worked closely with Dell founder Michael Dell as his executive assistant before taking up other roles.
A Sri Lankan Tamil, Anandan has made India his home since being named Dell India managing director in 2006. He was Microsoft India MD before joining Google. Apart from India, he is also an active angel investor in Sri Lanka and has backed the island nation's first venture capital firm BOV Capital.
Sequoia Capital India
The venture capital firm, which has invested in more than 130 startups in India including unicorns such as Ola, MuSigma and Zomato, had last year split its investment team into venture and growth verticals in line with a strategy it follows in the US and China.
At the time, Singh had told VCCircle that the India market had evolved to a point where there was depth in the growth equity market.
In August last year, the firm closed its sixth India fund at $695 million to invest in the country and Southeast Asia. The new fund will invest in the technology, consumer and healthcare sectors.
Earlier this year, it announced that its accelerator Surge would recruit 10 to 20 early-stage startups in two cohorts in a year and invest $1.5 million (Rs 10.6 crore) in each of them at an early stage of the programme.
The programme will invest in startups both in India and Southeast Asia across sectors such as consumer internet, deep tech, enterprise software, healthcare technology, fintech, cryptocurrency and direct-to-consumer brands.
