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Abhishek Nag and Vaibhav Agrawal Quit Lightspeed Venture Partners Vaibhav Agrawal is going to start his own venture firm. To oversee early-stage investments, Abhishek Nag has joined Mumbai-based 360 One (previously IIFL Wealth & Asset Management).

By Paromita Gupta

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[L-R] Abhishek Nag & Vaibhav Agrawal, Lightspeed Partners/LinkedIn

Vaibhav Agrawal and Abhishek Nag, two of Lightspeed Venture Partners' partners at its India subsidiary, have resigned from the firm.

Nag left Lightspeed India last month, according to his LinkedIn profile, and joined 360 One, formerly known as IIFL Wealth & Asset Management, in Mumbai. At 360 One, he would oversee early-stage investments.

According to the sources, Silicon Valley-based Agrawal left Lightspeed to launch his new venture firm. He joined Lightspeed's US fund three years ago and departed the venture capital firm in 2023.

The departures of Nag and Agrawal coincide with the resignations of other notable venture capital partners as the financing winter deepens. Nexus Venture Partners' Sameer Brij Verma left the company early this year to launch a new venture. After then, Sandeep Bapat, a partner at the venture debt company Trifecta Capital, departed to take a position as senior partner and co-chief investment officer at the private equity company Singularity Growth.

Lightbox Ventures and Orios Venture Partners, also had a number of high-level exits in the last year.

Founded in 2008, multi-stage venture capital firm Lightspeed has supported Indian giants like BYJU'S, Udaan, ShareChat, Oyo, Razorpay, and Innovacer. It led the USD 41 million funding round for Bengaluru-based GenAI firm Sarvam AI in December 2023, as well as the USD 103 million investment for Pocket FM in March.

With an emphasis on investments in India and Southeast Asia, Lightspeed raised USD 500 million in July 2022 for its fourth fund.

Its greater bets on some of the portfolio companies, such as the vernacular social media site ShareChat and the B2B platform Udaan, have resulted in a decline in valuation.

Paromita Gupta

Entrepreneur Staff

Features Writer with Entrepreneur India

Covering news and trends in AI and Metaverse segments. An avid book reader running her personal blog on the side. You may reach me at paromita@entrepreneurindia.com. 
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