Uber’s Amit Jain joins VC firm Sequoia India

BENGALURU: The former Asia- Pacific head of ride-hailing major Uber, Amit Jain, has joined venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India as a managing director (MD) based out of the firm’s Singapore office. Jain will look at mid to late-stage investments at the firm, which manages over $4 billion in funds for the region, across both India and Southeast Asia.
“Amit’s 20 years of operating experience and terrific track record of building and managing hyper-growth tech businesses globally, is going to give founders of fast-growing startups in our portfolio a huge advantage,” said Sequoia’s GV Ravishankar.
Jain had joined Uber as its first country-specific head in India back in 2015. Last year he was made the head of Asia-Pacific region, which included Australia, New Zealand, and North Asia, in addition to India and South Asia. He left Uber earlier this year. Before Uber, Jain was President at Rent, a housing classified site based in Los Angeles and also worked at TPG Capital and McKinsey & Co.
The appointment of Jain comes after Sequoia hired Rajan Anandan, former India and Southeast Asia head of search giant Google, in April this year. With the latest addition, Sequoia Capital India now has eight MDs equally split between India and Singapore offices. Jain’s entry would also help the firm add firepower to its team as three of the MDs left to set up A91 Partners last year.
Sequoia is considered the top venture capital firm in the US, being an early investor in iconic companies like Apple, Google, WhatsApp, YouTube, and PayPal. Its portfolio companies in India include hotels to co-living venture Oyo and food delivery startup Zomato besides top companies in Southeast Asia like Indonesian ride-hailing giant Go Jek and online travel firm Traveloka.