Aavishkaar Capital Partner Sushma Kaushik Quits To Take On New Challenges

Amid a rising trend of partners and fund managers exiting venture capital firms in the country, now Sushma Kaushik, partner at Aavishkaar Capital, the investment arm of Aavishkaar Group, has exited the VC firm.

In a post on LinkedIn, Kaushik said it was time for new beginnings. “After an enriching time at Aavishkaar Capital, it’s time for new beginnings… As I move forward, I am excited to take on new challenges and continue building businesses and investing in the future,” she said. 

In response to Inc42’s query on the matter, Vineet Rai, founder of the Aavishkaar Group, said, “Sushma spent 13 years with Aavishkaar and wanted to explore a world beyond it after pretty much spending most of her early life with us… she remains deeply committed to Aavishkaar despite this transition. Aavishkaar has a long tradition of offering women leadership to private equity space and we see our alum as our ambassador to the world of private equity.” 

Founded in 2001 by Rai, Aavishkaar Capital invests in early-stage startups in India. AgroStar, Newtrace, Mooofarm, and Chqbook are among the startups in its portfolio. 

Kaushik joined the VC firm in 2011 as a senior investment manager. She became a partner at the firm in 2019.

It is pertinent to note that the VC ecosystem saw several partner-level departures in 2023, including those at Orios Venture Partners, Lightbox, Rebright, Venture Highway, Lightrock India, and Together Fund.

While Avinash Raghava, partner at Together Fund, stepped down in March, three partners at Lightbox — Siddharth Talwar, Prashant Mehta, and Jeremy Wenokur – exited in August. 

Soon, Orios Venture Partners also saw the exits of managing partners Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri in September last year.

The exits in VC firms took place amid a slowdown in investments and increasing troubles in various portfolio companies.

While Lightbox is dealing with the problems in beleaguered quick commerce startup Dunzo, Orios had to write off its investment in GoMechanic following the company’s corporate governance trouble. Another Orios portfolio startup Pharmeasy has also seen a major devaluation in the past year.

Amid all these, Omidyar Network last week said it would completely transition out of the India market by the end of 2024.

[The article has been updated with Aavishkaar Group’s comment]

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