Sumant Kasliwal Quits ICICI Venture To Float E-commerce Biz

Sumant Kasliwal, a private equity investor with 10 years of experience and principal at the ICICI Venture, has put in his papers and is now floating his own e-commerce business.

Kasliwal confirmed the development to VCCircle, adding that he would be floating an e-commerce business in the education space. He said another person from the domestic venture capital industry would join him in the new initiative, but did not disclose his name.

"E-commerce is quickly disrupting the existing models," said Kasliwal who had joined ICICI Venture in 2008 and focused on investments in the consumer and media & entertainment space.

Kasliwal was actively involved in the fundraising for fund III at ICICI Ventures. He has held multiple leadership and operating roles at STAR India across digital services and television distribution & marketing, before heading business planning and strategy for the online services group of Microsoft India. Prior to STAR, he worked with ICICI Venture for over four years and focused on media investments.

During his first tenure with ICICI Venture, Kasliwal was a board member of Miditech, Contest2win, Hungama and Traveljini, providing operating and strategic guidance to the companies and assisting the fund investments with exit strategies. He is a chartered accountant and started his career with Arthur Andersen.

ICICI Venture has seen a couple of people exit in the recent past. K S Jangbahadur, a veteran investment banker with 14 years' exposure and co-head of the private equity practice at ICICI Venture, reportedly put in his papers to join JP Morgan as head of its private equity business. Also, executive director Sumit Chandwani had left the firm.

In 2009, Renuka Ramnath quit ICICI Venture to start her own fund management business, Multiples Alternate Asset Management. ICICI Venture is one of the largest domestic PE fund managers in the country with assets under management of around $ 2 billion.