Amid Wave Of Top Level Exits At Orios, CFO & COO Gaurav Bindal Calls It Quits

The spate of top-level exits continues at venture capital (VC) firm Orios Venture Partners. Now, the ixigo-backer’s chief financial officer (CFO) and chief operations officer (COO) Gaurav Bindal has reportedly quit the firm. 

As per VCCircle, Bindal oversaw fund operations and transaction closure as well as other areas such as finance, legal, compliance and HR at Orios. As per the report, he led the closure of all investment deals since joining the investment firm in 2021. 

Bindal also reportedly handled legal, structuring, regulatory, due diligence, risk assessment, and commercial aspects at Orios. 

An alumnus of Delhi University, Bindal has more than two decades of experience under his belt. Prior to joining Orios, he worked at XSEED Education, ITC Infotech and Ernst & Young.

This is the third major blow to the VC firm in a year. In September last year, Orios’ two managing partners, Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri, quit the company to float their venture. 

Subsequently, their departures led to the delay in the closure of Orios’ third fund. Originally targeted to close at $150 Mn in December 2023, Fund III was delayed for the second time in July this year on account of logistical challenges in onboarding limited partners (LPs) and scheduling constraints. 

Orios Venture Partners is an early-stage VC firm, which counts names such as PharmEasy, MobiKwik, CarDekho, and Vedantu among its portfolio companies. 

Earlier this year, the investment firm returned INR 300 Cr from its first fund to its investors. Launched in 2014, Orios’ Fund I was concluded with a final close at INR 300 Cr in 2015. More recently, the investment major appointed former Omidyar Network India executive Madhav Tandan as a senior partner. 

The churn at Orios comes at a time when early-stage VC and PE firms are witnessing a surge in interest from LPs and other high-net-worth individuals (HNIs). 

Last month, early-stage VC firm z21 Ventures marked the first close of its $40 Mn Fund II at $20 Mn. In the same month, another early-stage backer Capital A launched its Fund II with a target corpus of INR 400 Cr. 

In August, early-stage VC firm Ankur Capital was reportedly looking to raise a target corpus of INR 1,200 Cr for its Fund III. Prior to that, Whiteboard Capital also marked the final close of its second fund at INR 300 Cr against an initial target of INR 150 Cr.