Lightrock India Partner CFO Kushal Agrawal To Quit PE Firm

Lightrock India’s partner and chief financial officer (CFO) Kushal Agrawal has announced plans to quit the private equity (PE) firm. He will step down from the company on December 31.

Agrawal confirmed the development to The Economic Times and said he plans to work with the investment firm in a ‘non-executive capacity for some time’. With this, Agrawal’s almost decade long stint at the PE firm (formerly Aspada) comes to an end.

This comes hours after Moneycontrol first reported the development and attributed Agrawal’s departure to ‘internal differences’ within the firm over ‘how the fund should operate’. However, Agrawala denied this and told ET that the transition was ‘carefully’ planned for a few quarters.

With this, the PE firm will now only be left with three partners – Saleem Asaria, Vaidhehi Ravindran, and Kartik Srivatsa. Interestingly, Moneycontrol, citing sources, said that even Asaria has stepped back from daily operations but continues to remain a company employee. 

However, Asaria refuted this. “What you have been told is completely false and I continue in my existing position at Lightrock,” Asaria told Moneycontrol. 

The exit of Agrawal adds more fuel to the ongoing strife at Lightrock India. The PE firm has seen a slew of exits in the past one year. While principal Raghav Rungta is said to have left the investment firm recently, another principal, Ashish Garg, quit Lightrock India in September last year to join Zyla Health as its Chief Business Officer (CBO).

On top of that, Lightrock India’s investments in epharmacy PharmEasy and hyperlocal startup Dunzo have not panned out well as both startups are facing a severe financial crunch and have been struggling to stay afloat. 

Amid all this, the PE firm has reportedly not made any investments in the Indian startup ecosystem in the past 12 months. The internal differences at the firm have also reportedly delayed plans to raise $600-$700 Mn for an India-focussed fund. 

Agrawal was one of the key architects of the London-headquartered investor’s foray into India more than a decade ago. Back then, the firm was known as Aspada, which was later acquired by Swiss PE firm LGT in 2019 and rebranded as Lightrock.

Lightrock India is largely focussed on growth-stage impact investments with ticket sizes in the range of $10 Mn to $50 Mn. The firm counts major startups such as Dunzo, PharmEasy, Porter, Scaler and DeHaat in its portfolio. 

However, the saga of exits at Lightock India is in line with the larger trend seen in the Indian investor ecosystem in 2023. In October, reports surfaced that VC firm Venture Highway’s founder Samir Sood had stepped away from the company. Prior to this, Orios’ Venture Partners’ managing partners Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri also reportedly quit unceremoniously. 

In September, partner at Rebright Partners, Brij Bhushan, also announced his exit to float his new AI venture. There were also reports that Lightbox executives Siddharth Talwar, Jeremy Wenokur and Prashant Mehta were also looking to leave the investment firm. 

A majority of the partners quit their respective funds to pursue other opportunities, be it launching new funds or announcing a new startup. Some of the exits have also been exacerbated by a slowdown in the investment arena in the past 24 months and troubles at their portfolio startups. 

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