Kaushik Anand quits CapitalG to join A91 Partners started by former Sequoia MDs

A91 Partners, a fund set up by three ex-Sequoia managing directors, has made its first recruitment by appointing Kaushik Anand, India head of CapitalG, as a partner.

Anand has quit his post at the Google’s Venture arm to join Abhay Pandey, VT Bharadwaj, and Gautam Mago led VC A91 Partners by early next year.

Kaushik Anand has started his stint at CapitalG in 2015. Since then he had led the firm in deploying funds in startups like CarDekho, Cuemath, and Aye Finance. Other than these CapitalG has also invested in Freshworks, Practo, Commonfloor in India, and Airbnb, Stripe, Snapchat etc., globally.

The cofounders of A91 are raising a Rs 2000 crore maiden fund to be deployed in early to growth-stage companies via series B and series C rounds of ticket sizes ranging from $10-30 million by the first quarter of 2019.

The fund is slated to focus on segments including, consumer, financial services, healthcare, and technology. Anand’s role as a partner at A91 hence becomes a sensible recruitment as his areas of interest at CapitalG align with the new VCs focus sectors.

While Anand’s joining at A91 is expected around the beginning of 2019, Pandey is also in his cooling-off period at Sequoia and will leave around December. Apart from Anand, A91 is also welcoming Prasun Agarwal on board, who is currently pursuing MBA at Harvard Business School. Both Anand and Agarwal have worked with Sequoia in the past, which becomes the common link between all the five members of the new VC.

This is not the first time members of Sequoia have joined to start a new venture. In 2011, Sumir Chadha, Sandeep Singhal, KP Balraj, and SK Jain had left Sequoia to revive WestBridge Capital.

In the industry, there have been several other such events taking place in the past few years, for example, the disintegration of Helion Ventures into Stellaris Venture Partners and Fireside Ventures among others.

This development was first reported by ET.