Sandeep Naik to step down as General Atlantic’s India and Southeast Asia Head, will move to an advisory role

Sandeep Naik, the India & Southeast Asia head and managing director at global private equity major General Atlantic

Sandeep Naik, the India & Southeast Asia head and managing director at global private equity major General Atlantic, will be moving on from his position, people aware of the matter told Moneycontrol. They added that he is on a path to eventually transition to an advisory role within the investment firm by the end of the calendar year.

Naik had joined the firm as managing director and the head of its India office in late 2012 after spending time at PE firm Apax Partners. Once his tenure with General Atlantic ends, his responsibilities will be shared between Shantanu Rastogi in India and Neal Kok in Southeast Asia (SEA), sources said.

Kok, formerly a director at rival KKR & Co, is a recent hire in Singapore.

Rastogi, however, is a long-time executive at the firm and was elevated to managing partner in 2017. He has shared the title of India head with Naik over the past couple of years. He has been overseeing operations in the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem from the Mumbai office, Moneycontrol has learnt.

General Atlantic declined to comment on the matter.

The global investment firm, since the late 1990s, has deployed more than $6 billion in 45 companies across India and SEA. In India, General Atlantic has tripled investments since 2014 and invested around $4 billion in over 22 companies, including traditional businesses and tech startups, per its website, underscoring its commitment to the country.

While startups such as Byju’s, Unacademy, PhonePe, Acko, Amagi, BillDesk, No Broker and others are all part of its tech bets in India, legacy companies like PNB Housing Finance, Rubicon Research, Capital Foods (Ching’s Secret) have also been part of its portfolio here in the country.

Byju’s debacle

Industry insiders said that the battered edtech Byju’s downfall has been a major cause of upset for the firm.

General Atlantic has invested $300-$400 million across multiple rounds in the edtech company to secure a stake of around 6 percent.

However, the edtech startup’s quick implosion — from being a behemoth valued at $22 billion in 2022 to now a company struggling to raise $200 million even at a paltry valuation of $20 million — has been too much to stomach for all its investors, including large ones like General Atlantic.

Not just that, its other bets have not fared well either. Another edtech company from General Atlantic’s portfolio, Unacademy, is reportedly in talks to merge with Peak XV-backed K12 Techno.

In 2022, Prosus-backed PayU was in talks to acquire BillDesk, a payments gateway business, for a staggering $4.7 billion but the deal was eventually called off which meant an exit to early investors, like General Atlantic, was delayed.

Management rejig

To be sure, many top-tier investment firms have witnessed top deck changes over the last year. While some of the rejigs happened in the backdrop of their startup bets turning sour, others signal a change in investing strategy, as venture capital and private equity firms look to deploy capital raised after a prolonged funding winter.

Earlier this year, General Atlantic hired Kok, a former director at KKR, to lead its investments in Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. He was to report to Naik, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.

Last month, the firm announced that Anand Agarwal, chief financial officer of Amazon’s consumer business in India, would join the firm’s regional leadership team as an Operating Partner focused on India and Southeast Asia.

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General Atlantic expects to deploy up to $1 billion in new investments in India annually for the next few years, betting on businesses built around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to expand financial inclusion and increase technology usage, Bloomberg reported last year.

The planned investment compares with the $500 million to $1.2 billion that General Atlantic has invested per annum in recent years in Southeast Asia and India, Rastogi told the news agency at the time. The New York-based company manages about $70 billion of assets globally.