Mirae Asset India VC Arm CEO Ashish Dave Steps Down

SUMMARY

Mirae Asset Venture Investments India CEO Ashish Dave has stepped down from his role

Dave has served Mirae for more than seven years after joining in 2018

He has invested in companies like Unacademy, Jupiter, Zomato, BigBasket and Zolo

Ashish Dave, the chief executive officer of Mirae Asset Venture Investments (India), has stepped down from his role after a seven-year stint.

Confirming Dave’s resignation, sources privy to the matter told Inc42 that he will be relieved from his responsibilities in the coming months.

MoneyControl reported the development first.

Mirae Asset Venture Investments (India) is the venture capital arm of Seoul-based Mirae Asset Global Investments.

Following Dave’s departure, Mirae’s Korean team will handle his responsibilities until they find a suitable replacement.

However, Dave’s next move is not known yet.

He joined Mirae Asset Venture Investments in 2018 and has invested in companies, including Unacademy, Jupiter, Zomato, Ola, BigBasket and Zolo, among others.

The outgoing CEO is also the fund manager of Mirae’s SEBI registered category II alternative investment fund.

Mirae Assets VC firm invests in technology-led startups across stages. It counts Ola Cabs, BigBasket, Zomato, Shadowfax, Zolo Stays, Kreditbee, Raise Financial Services, Jai Kisan, Unacademy, ShareChat, Jupiter, NextBillion.ai, Eka.care, AppsForBharat, Ummeed Housing Finance and SK Finance in its portfolio.

Its global portfolio includes Didi Chuxing (China), Grab (SE Asia), Glovo (Europe), Market Kurly (South Korea), SpaceX, X.ai and X.com/Twitter (US).

In its Indian portfolio companies, Ola Cabs and Shadowfax are eyeing public listing and Raise Financial Services’ Dhan is looking to raise funding at a unicorn valuation.

After the National Stock Exchange (NSE) launched EV and new-age automotive vehicle ecosystem focussed index last year, Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India) announced plans to launch an exchange traded fund (ETF) focussed on this ecosystem. The asset manager filed documents for the ‘Mirae Asset Nifty EV and New Age Automotive ETF’ with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The development comes at a time when India is witnessing an increase in startup funding led by VC and private equity (PE) firms. In the last few years, several funds have emerged for startups across stages and sectors like GenAI, fintech, ecommerce, gaming among others.

Recently, Meta partnered with four top VC firms- Bitkraft Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Lumikai Fund and Elevation Capital- to launch the Meta Gaming Accelerator in India.

It will support 20-30 small and mid-sized game developers and studios across India and aims to help them scale through expert mentoring, strategic guidance and Meta’s AI tools, including Llama.

Last month, former 100X.VC partners Shashank Randev and Yagnesh Sanghrajka have together launched VC firm 247VC and unveiled its first fund with a target corpus of INR 250 Cr.

The fund will be largely available for seed-stage startups, with follow-on capital for future rounds. 247VC plans to invest in 30 startups over the next three years.

Besides, 360 ONE Asset, a wholly-owned subsidiary of 360 ONE WAM launched an INR 500 Cr early stage VC fund.The sector-agnostic fund will target seed and Series A startups across sectors, including consumer technology, fintech infrastructure, generative AI, spacetech, defence and precision manufacturing.