Eight Roads Ventures Asia managing partner Raj Dugar quits

In picture: Raj Dugar. In the interim, his duties has been divided equally between Shweta Bhatia and Prem Pavoor.

Raj Dugar, managing partner for Asia at Eight Roads Ventures, has quit ending a 17-year run with the investor, people aware of the developments told Moneycontrol. Eight Roads Ventures is a global investment firm backed by Fidelity which invests in consumer, enterprise and health-tech startups.

Dugar had joined Eight Roads back in 2007 and set up the fund’s operations in India before subsequently moving to Singapore in 2018 and expanding reach in other Asian markets as well. Prior to this, he was the director at The Carlyle Group for three years and also had stints at Goldman Sachs, Merlion India Fund and others in the past.

He also co-founded WestBridge in 2o00 and left in 2003. Today, WestBridge is one of the most prolific investors in the country.

While not finalised yet, Dugar has been engaging with investors within the ecosystem and may start his own secondaries fund to tap into a growing market, one of the people cited above said. He has even relocated back to Mumbai, Moneycontrol has learnt.

His exit comes at a time when several partners at multiple venture capital funds, across the board, have quit over the past months to strike out on their own, as reported by Moneycontrol earlier.

Eight Roads Ventures, which backs companies like Shadowfax, PharmEasy, Whatfix and several others in India, is yet to find a candidate who will replace Dugar. In the interim, his duties have been divided equally between Shweta Bhatia (partner and head of tech investments) and Prem Pavoor (senior partner and head of healthcare investments), a second person aware of the developments told Moneycontrol. It will eventually promote an internal Partner, instead of roping in an external executive, to take up the top job to ensure smooth transition.

Eight Roads Ventures did not reply to Moneycontrol’s emails seeking details.

Also read: Everstage to raise $30 million at $150-million valuation

India, the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem after the US and China, is a key market for Eight Roads. It has allocated over $1.6 billion in capital across more than 70 companies since its inception here around 15 years ago. Apart from India, it is present in China, Europe and Japan and has over $11 billion in assets under management (AUM). It has more than 300 companies in its portfolio of which more than 60 have gone public (IPO), as per data available on its website.

Since being founded, Eight Roads Ventures was a part of Fidelity International Limited (FIL) but was demerged in September 2019, giving it more flexibility while making investments. Fidelity is still its limited partner (LP)/fund sponsor and Eight Roads does not accept funds from third parties.