Anuvrat Jain: The instinctive finance guy

Anuvrat Jain Image: Mexy Xavier; Light painting: Neha Mithbawkar

Anuvrat Jain | 28
Vice president, Lightspeed
 
A meeting with Anuvrat Jain tells you that there is a mature head on the lean structure. At 28, he has already ticked off several boxes beyond what is taught at management schools or an investment banking firm: Engage and network with founders and companies that are helping build a stronger ecosystem, even if they are outside your portfolio; brainstorm on trends while not being blinkered by potential investment decisions; and make your voice heard in the team, in a refined manner.

All this has helped him become one of the youngest vice presidents at venture capital firm Lightspeed, his promotion coming this January.

Today, he is one of the founding members of Lightspeed’s India and SE Asia Growth investment teams. He has also been on the board of three of Lightspeed’s portfolio companies: Debt marketplace firm Yubi (formerly CredAvenue); shared workspace provider Awfis; and Indonesia’s logistics and warehouse firm Shipper. He meets each week with other members of Lightspeed’s global growth team, exchanging ideas and notes on everything technology.

Lightspeed does not disclose the size of investments through their global Growth fund, but is learnt to have deployed $200 million in net new investments, pooled out of the global Growth corpus of nearly $5 billion. Excluding the Growth investments, Lightspeed has raised nearly $1.08 billion, since 2015, through four focussed funds for India and the Southeast Asia region.

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Jain’s successes have come with the Razorpay deal in May 2022, with Lightspeed investing in the fintech’s $75 million secondary share sale. He and his colleague Bejul Somaia were always in touch with Razorpay’s co-founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar through various fintech events.

“There was an opportunity brimming to get in, in a more creative manner,” Jain tells Forbes India. His relationship and persistence helped unlock this opportunity for the team to tap in meaningfully. Razorpay, which in December 2021, was privately valued at $7.5 billion, has plans to grow in the Southeast Asian region.

View the full list of Forbes India 30 Under 30 2023 here

Jain says he expects to stay Asia- and tech-focussed in the coming years, having gathered experiences while working previously at private equity firm ChrysCapital and playing a critical role in 2020 by creating the framework to invest in new-economy companies such as Dream11, Awfis and FirstCry.



ChrysCapital’s co-founder and managing partner Kunal Shroff recounts what Jain brought to the table. “Anuvrat was all high-energy, has great attitude and blended with all our investment teams. When he had a view, he made his voice heard,” says Shroff. And his portfolio companies have certainly been listening.