Kalaari Capital ropes in former Paytm operations chief as partner

Kalaari Capital has hired a former top executive of digital payments firm Paytm as its new partner as the early-stage venture capital firm gets ready to close its fourth fund.

Kiran Vasireddy, who quit Paytm after nearly a decade, joined Kalaari in January, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Vasireddy was chief operating officer when he left the digital payments firm in 2019.

Prior to Paytm, Vasireddy was regional business manager at IBM.

Kalaari has also appointed Vamshi Reddy and Ravinder Singh as principals, The Economic Times said.

Kalaari Capital didn’t respond to emails seeking comments on the appointments and the fourth fund.

The developments come after The Economic Times reported that Reliance Industries has come in as an anchor investor in Kalaari's fourth fund.

Notably, Reliance has in the past few years bought a bunch of Kalaari's portfolio firms such as Urban Ladder, Zivame, Embibe and Haptik.

The appointment of the new executives also gains significance as Kalaari has seen a slew of top exits in the past.

For instance, Sreedhar Prasad, who had joined Kalaari from consultancy KPMG India in 2018, left within just eight months, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In 2018, Kalaari partner Sumit Jain left for Sistema Asia Fund Advisory, a venture fund floated by Russian conglomerate Sistema PJSFC.

In the same year, the Mint reported that Kalaari managing director Rajesh Raju may quit Kalaari but would continue to manage the second and third funds.

In October 2017, partners Bala Srinivasa and Prashanth Aluru resigned from the venture capital firm.