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Peak XV Partners, a leading venture capital firm in India and Southeast Asia, has witnessed a new round of senior exodus. This follows other leadership exits over the past year as it moves forward with plans to deepen its focus on AI investments and expand its footprint in the US, while retaining India as its largest market.<\/p>\n
The latest departure stems from a disagreement between Ashish Agrawal (pictured above, left) that led to the decision to part ways, Managing Director Shailendra Singh told TechCrunch. He added that two of his colleagues, Ishaan Mittal (pictured above, right) and Tejeshwi Sharma (pictured above, centre), chose to go with him.<\/p>\n
Singh said that Peak XV does not want to go public with disagreements and is focused on moving forward. “Out of privacy, and out of, like, trying to be classy about it,” he said. Singh added that such departures were common for many, multi-tiered companies and that Peak XV wanted to move on quickly after several years of working together.<\/p>\n
All board seats held by departing partners will be replaced “immediately,” Singh said, noting that the firm already has diverse representatives at many of its portfolio companies. He said Peak XV was not interested in continuing, noting that many of his partners and colleagues were already involved on all boards.<\/p>\n
The departure marks the exit of long-time investors in the company. Agrawal has been with Peak XV for more than 13 years, while Mittal spent nine years at the company and Sharma more than seven years, according to their LinkedIn profiles.<\/p>\n
Agrawal wrote in a LinkedIn post that he had decided to “focus on entrepreneurship” and was working with Mittal and Sharma to start a new venture capital firm. He described this move as an opportunity to build a new institution with long-term partners and thanked the leadership of Peak XV for what he called “a really good partnership.”<\/p>\n
During his time at Peak XV, Agrawal led investments across fintech, consumer, and software, including Groww, one of the firm’s top IPOs in 2025. He has also backed a number of early-stage and growth companies alongside Mittal and Sharma, which has been instrumental in building Peak XV’s extensive portfolio over the past decade.<\/p>\n
Agrawal, Mittal, and Sharma did not return messages for comment.<\/p>\n
Peak XV has also moved to strengthen its senior leadership internally. The firm on Tuesday promoted Abhishek Mohan to general partner, expanding the investment leadership bench, while Saipriya Sarangan was promoted to chief executive officer, overseeing the firm’s overall operations.<\/p>\n
The leadership changes come amid a landmark year for the Peak XV portfolio. Five of its companies – Groww, Pine Labs, Meesho, Wakefit, and Capillary Technologies – went public in November and December 2025, making about R300 billion (about 3.33 billion) in unrealized profits, market-to-market for the company, in addition to a profit of about R28 billion during the sale of R21 billion (an estimated profit of IP3 billion).<\/p>\n
In addition to recent departures, Peak XV has seen a broad increase in its peak levels over the past 12 months. Last year, longtime investment leaders Harshjit Sethi and Shailesh Lakhani left the India team, while Abheek Anand and Pieter Kemps left the firm’s Southeast Asia operations. The company has also seen leadership changes across its sales, policy, and operations teams in recent months.<\/p>\n
Singh dismissed the notion circulating in the market that many of the partners who drove Peak XV’s biggest exits are no longer with the company, calling the story “statistically untrue.” He said many of the company’s most important results were led by long-time partners at Peak XV, and said the company’s track record was not dependent on any one person.<\/p>\n
Peak XV currently has seven general partners, as well as several partners and principals, according to Singh.<\/p>\n
The VC firm, which spun off from Sequoia Capital in 2023 and currently manages more than $10 billion across 16 funds, has made about 80 AI-related investments, Singh said, highlighting its push to deepen its focus on AI funding. It is also preparing to open a US office within the next 90 days as it expands its global footprint, according to Singh, while continuing to view India as its largest and most important market.<\/p>\n
Singh said the firm believes AI will reshape the investment business more deeply than previous technological changes, saying that successful AI investing requires investors with a deep understanding of the technology rather than “general” knowledge. He added that Peak XV is looking to add traditional AI talent, including researchers and engineers with backgrounds in machine learning and large-scale model development.<\/p>\n
The firm has invested in more than 400 companies, and its portfolio has seen more than 35 public offerings and several M&As to date.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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