Daybreak - One more senior exit at Peak XV. What’s behind the churn at India’s largest venture-capital firm?

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Harshjit Sethi, managing director at Peak XV and the firm’s AI investment lead, has resigned, marking yet another senior exit. His departure follows the exits of longtime partners Shailesh Lakhani and Abheek Anand, raising fresh questions about India’s largest venture-capital firm. And the timing is striking: Peak XV is also on the verge of its biggest payday yet, with upcoming IPOs from Groww, Pine Labs, and Meesho that could deliver billions. In this episode, we look at the paradox of Peak XV’s best year colliding with its worst, and what it means for its global ambitions.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me. My interruptions, my analogies and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first video. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. You know what's funny about success? Sometimes it shows up at the exact moment when things are falling apart. Right now, India's largest venture capital firm is living that contradiction.

Peak 15, once known as Sequoia India, is staring at its best year ever. After 20 years, billions of dollars invested and countless skeptics, it finally looks ready to cash in big. IPOs from startups like Grow, Pine Labs and Micho could hand it a $2 billion payday, and that is on top of $1.5 billion in exits since 2024. For a firm accused of weak distributions, that is a firm accused of weak distributions. that is redemption. But just as the champagne bottles are getting chilled, people are walking out of the door.

Two of its most senior partners quit in early 2025. And nearly 20 others, including investors, marketing leads and even policy heads, have left since the rebranding. And now there is another big blow. Yesterday, news broke that Harjit Sati, one of the firm's managing directors, has resigned. Now, SETI was not just any partner. He led Peak 15's push into artificial intelligence,

and he backed companies like Sarvam and Bharat Bay. And at a time when the firm is trying to prove that it can compete globally in AI deals, his exit is a major signal. His departure follows closely on the heels of veterans like Shailesh Lakhani and Abik Anand, just as the firm gears up for its next big fundraise. Now, at a place where departures were once rare, this kind of an exodus is jarring. The story of Peak 15 is no longer about investments and returns. It is about power struggles, about relationships, and about ambition colliding with reality.

And maybe about survival in an industry where timing, luck and stories matter just as much as actual profits. So what happens when your best year is also your worst? Can India's most famous venture capital become the country's true global powerhouse or will it burn itself out while chasing that dream? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rachel Vargis and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 4th of September. Peak 15 has been around for two decades.

It's deployed over $9 billion into Indian startups. But for years, though, its record was average. Headlines, yes. Big exits? Not really. Indian venture capital has generally returned one to one and a half times the money that was raised. And that is a far cry from Sequoia's legendary five to ten times returns in the US. Now things look different.

IPOs from Grow, Pine Labs and Misho could deliver $2 billion in returns, and add to that the $1.5 billion in cash exits since 2024, and suddenly the numbers do look impressive. Redemption might be finally here for Peak 15. But when you look closely, the picture kind of blurs. Take Oyo, for example. Peak 15 made half a billion dollars on it, but only because SoftBanks Masayoshi Son fell in love with the company.

Today, Oyo is a shell of its former $10 billion self. Or take Bayju's, for instance, one of India's biggest corporate embarrassments. Peak 15 made money, but the deal left scars across the ecosystem. Even its crown jewel, Pine Labs shows the challenge. 17 years of holding still waiting for a proper payday. A $300 million IPO is coming, but to hit a truly respectable 20% internal rate of return, peak 15 would need something close to 40 times. So far, it has taken home maybe $650 million.

And that is the thing about Indian venture investing. Even the best exits feel short. Across all of Sequoia India's funds, distributions to investors have barely hovered around one times, maybe two times on the earliest funds. Respectable, sure, but not enough. And yet, for years, Sequoia India charged investors premium fees, 2.5% of capital, just like the US mothership. And after the 2023 split, peak 15 cut that to 2%.

A nod to restless investors, but fee cuts have side effects. Old funds age out, fees dry up, partner salaries start to feel heavy. Suddenly, being lean starts looking good. Too many partners, not enough unicorns, and that is the, the backdrop to everything else. Coming up next, we talk about the people at Peak 15. In 2022, Peak 15 raised a monster $2.8 billion of fund. Along with it came promotions.

Five new general partners, 12 in total. The idea was structure, multi-stage investing, multi-geography focus, and so multiple partners. But in reality, it bred frustration. younger investors saw no clear path upward. One of them, Sri Anj Thakur, the key investor in Mishu, quit. Ten others followed since the Sequoia split. Credit Inventure is also a zero-sum game.

Who sourced the deal? Who pushed it through? Who gets the carry? Officially, it is teamwork. But in practice, it is turf wars. And despite equal titles, real power sits with the old god. Sheldendra Singh, Jeevi Ravishankar and Maw. Mohid Bhatnagar. They have been around since 2006 and they sit on every investment committee.

They collect bigger fees because they are tied to older funds still paying out. Over time, the layers stack in their favor. The recent exits of veterans like Shailish Lakhani and Abik Anand cut deep. Lakhani had been there for 17 years and his exit totaled around $800 million. He had a reputation for clean governance, no scandals, no blowups. Founders liked him because he took board seats, held them accountable. But he disagreed with the firm's global push and its focus on AI beyond India. After a meditative Vipasna retreat, he decided to resign. And now the timing of Harshjit Sati's departure stings even more. He wasn't just another partner. He was the one leading Peak 15th AI bet. on companies like Sarvam, exactly the area where the firm most needs credibility if it wants to compete globally. Losing him while still trying to plant a flag in Silicon Valley adds uncertainty about who will carry that strategy forward. Because here is reality. Peak 15 is no longer just an India story. It wants to go global, it wants to play the AI game and for the first time it can

invest directly in Silicon Valley. So it has around 50 AI deals in the last two years. Often, these are small stakes just to be on the cap table. But sometimes they have missed out entirely like with Composio. It's one significant AI adjacent bet is Superbase with an $80 million series C round. Useful, but not exactly groundbreaking. The problem is, in the valley, deals move fast. See drowns close in hours, series A in days. Companies grow to $100 million ARR in two years, not 10. Peak 15 is used to playing long games in India. Peak 15 has built a small team there. It has hired talent like Jamie Bott, who was once Sequoia's famous recruiter. Shailander Singh himself spends more time in the States. He is even

rumoured to have bought a house there. But against giants like Kossela Venture, and light speeds, is all of this enough? The truth is, peak 15 now finds itself in line. It is waiting to pitch to AI founders, and not just competing with the Kozlas and Andersons, but also with its Indian rivals who are going global as well. So here's the tension. Peak 15 is chasing scale, chasing Silicon Valley credibility,

while risking the very identity that made it India's biggest venture capital in the first place. So will it become India's first break? out Global Venture Fund? Or will it lose itself trying to be something that it's not? Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription offers daily, long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague, Snitha Sharma,

edited by Rajee F.N.