VT Bharadwaj, one of the managing directors at Sequoia Capital, has decided to step down after 11 years at the venture capital and growth-stage investor.
"After 11 years with Sequoia India, I have decided to pursue my entrepreneurial aspirations," he tweeted. He will continue to serve on Sequoia’s boards.
Bharadwaj could not be reached despite repeated calls to his phone. Sequoia, too, did not respond to an email.
A person familiar with the development told VCCircle that the date for his resignation had not been fixed yet. "He is somebody deeply entrenched as a friend of the firm so it will take some time for the transition to happen," the person said. "We know Bharadwaj wants to do something on his own, and he is still working out the details."
The investment industry veteran sits on the boards of 14 healthcare and consumer firms in the Sequoia portfolio. These include mother-care and child-care company Cloudnine, beverage firm RAW Pressery, diagnostics player Suburban Diagnostics, chips maker Prataap Snacks, and women clothes’ firm Go Colors, according to Sequoia’s website.
Last June, Gautam Mago, another managing director at Sequoia Capital, had resigned after 10 years.
After Bharadwaj’s exit, Sequoia Capital, one of the most active investors in India in the venture capital space, will be left with 12 investment advisers. The current investment advisers include Mohit Bhatnagar, Shailesh Lakhani, Abhay Pandey, Abheek Anand and Sakshi Chopra.
In the past decade, the venture capital firm has invested in over 130 companies, deploying more than $2 billion, and has exited over 55 firms. The unicorns in its Indian portfolio are Mu Sigma, Ola and Zomato. It was not an early investor in any of these unicorns and, in fact, came in at their growth stage.
Exits at other venture-capital firms
Other venture capital firms have also seen their key executives leave over the past few years.
In 2014, home-grown venture capital firm Helion Venture Partners’ co-founder Kanwaljit Singh quit to later launch his own early-stage venture fund Fireside Ventures.
In late 2015, Helion's three partners — Rahul Chowdhri, Ritesh Banglani and Alok Goyal — also left the firm to launch their own venture fund in 2016.
Mukul Singhal and Rohit Jain, two principals at SAIF Partners, left the firm in January 2016 to start an early-stage firm Pravega Ventures.
In the same year, Matrix Partners’ co-founder Rishi Navani quit the firm to float a new investment firm Epiq Capital. Moreover, IDG Ventures India’s co-founder Manik Arora also moved out of the venture capital firm in 2015.