Trifecta Capital Sees A Senior Partner Exit Amidst New Fund Closure

Akash Goel, a partner at venture debt firm Trifecta Capital, has left the firm almost three years after joining, according to a Moneycontrol report. Goel’s exit comes shortly after Trifecta’s final close of its second fund, Trifecta Venture Debt Fund-II at INR 1,025 Cr (roughly $150 Mn).

Goel is said to have communicated his decision to leave Trifecta a few months ago, with plans to launch a new startup. Prior to joining Trifecta, Goel worked with Bessemer Venture Partners, where he led investments into BigBasket, Pharmeasy and Urban Company. The venture debt firm also has investments in these firms. 

Trifecta Capital confirmed Goel’s departure to Moneycontrol. The company had hired Goldman Sachs executive Lavanya Ashok as Partner in October 2020 to oversee Trifecta’s expansion into equity investments.

Rahul Khanna, the co-founder of the venture debt firm, however, told the publication that it has no plans to enter into equity-based investments in the near future.

Trifecta has already invested INR 900 Cr across 38 companies and with a provision to recycle capital, it has an investible corpus of up to INR 2,560 Cr. 

The company’s first venture debt fund, which it claims was India’s first such fund, was launched in 2014. In its sixth year, the fund has returned over three-quarters of its capital to its investors and is likely to return 100% of the capital by June 2021. 

Across the two funds, Trifecta Capital claims to have invested around INR 2,000 Cr in 72 early growth and growth-stage startups. Its portfolio includes unicorns such as BigBasket, Cars24, Dailyhunt, Blackbuck as well as the likes of Pharmeasy, Vedantu, Infra.Market, ShareChat, Urban Company, Curefit, CarDekho, Ninjacart, NoBroker, Kreditbee, Dehaat, Turtlemint, Livspace and BharatPe.

Founded by Rahul Khanna and Nilesh Kothari in 2014, Trifecta Capital invests scross sectors such as B2B, consumer services, consumer brands, ecommerce, mobility, edtech, agritech, fintech and healthcare.

Venture debt investments into startups have become a preferred option for Indian startups looking to tide over the crisis without divesting equity in the process, especially given that investors chased higher equity at a lower valuation in the first half of 2020.  Between 2019-20 there has been a 2x surge in total venture debt funding in Indian startups from $217 Mn to $427 Mn.