Former Y Combinator investor Arnav Sahu joins Peak XV

Arnav Sahu has joined Peak XV as the first investment partner after a four-year stint as principal at startup accelerator Y Combinator.

Confirming the news on X (formerly Twitter), Sahu said he has joined Peak XV in Bay Area, California, as a partner. “YC changed my life trajectory. It's been a fun and intense few weeks at Peak XV. We’ve invested in some special YC startups in SF and globally. Lots more to come.”



In his earlier role at Y Combinator, Sahu was involved in growth investing efforts from seed funding to Series D stage. He has been associated with firms like ScaleAI, Replicate, Zepto, Luminai, Vanta, Rippling, among others, as an investor, according to information on his LinkedIn.

Entering the new role, Sahu will make investments as part of a new San Francisco-based team. Since 2023, Peak XV has been trying to establish itself as a standalone identity after the Sequoia spin-off.

The move aligns with a significant push to establish itself in the US, where it was unable to compete for deals due to its franchise partnership with Sequoia, ET reported in April.

In a career spanning over 12 years, Sahu has led investments at firms including Y Combinator's Continuity Fund, Spark Capital, and Blackstone. He had also founded AI-search startup Wolfia and led projects for App Dynamics and Cisco.

In April, Peak XV Partners made headlines as it planned its first independent fund with a target corpus of $1.2–1.4 billion. The top deck restructuring is an effort to make deals in the booming AI-sector, and help its startups collaborate in the US.

Since 2006, the venture capital firm — which has backed new-age companies such as Razorpay, Oyo and Truecaller, in addition to traditional businesses such as Prataap Snacks, Five Star Business Finance and Indigo Paints — has realised almost $6 billion in cash through exits from both public markets and private transactions.