Venture Highway founder Samir Sood steps down as partner; Priya Mohan now managing partner

Venture investor Samir Sood has stepped down as a partner of Venture Highway, an early-stage investment firm he co-founded and which is an investor in startups such as Meesho, Cred, Moglix and ShareChat.

Meanwhile, Venture Highway has elevated Priya Mohan as the managing partner, Sood told ET. Mohan and former WhatsApp top executive and Venture Highway co-founder Neeraj Arora would now take charge of the firm’s next phase.

Sood said the “transition was planned and thought through”, and that he has taken the role of an advisor “to assist the next generation to take charge and build the franchise further”. He added that Arora had informed the stakeholders of the transition in a communication sent in January this year.


Prior to starting Venture Highway, Sood had worked with US technology companies like Google, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems. During his time at Google, he spearheaded its investments in several initial seed-stage funds in India, including Erasmic Venture Fund, which is now Accel India.

Commenting on the structural changes under the new management, Sood said there will be no changes in the investing strategy. “We will remain a zero-to-one seed fund investing in category creating tech companies building in India/US for India and the globe,” he said.

Venture Highway is in the midst of raising its third fund, and the exercise will now be led by Mohan and Arora, who both hold the role of managing partners. The firm also onboarded Rahul Garg as a partner this year. Garg previously worked at Kalaari Capital and Iron Pillar.

The development was first reported by online news portal Inc42.

Founded in 2015, Venture Highway has a portfolio of 70 companies with six unicorns.

On September 29, ET reported that Venture Highway, one of the early backers of Meesho, is selling a majority of its stake in the company to WestBridge Capital in the secondary share sale at a valuation of about $3 billion.

The restructuring at Venture Highway has come at a time when other investment firms have undergone changes at the top level.

On September 18, ET reported that two managing partners of Orios Venture Partners Anup Jain and Rajiv Suri stepped down. On September 19, Bob van Dijk also quit as the CEO and board member of the Dutch tech investment firm Prosus and its parent company, South African conglomerate Naspers.