Senior executives across functions of technology, engineering and product took the plunge into exploring the next frontier in fintech, healthcare and even artificial intelligence.
In partnership with executive search firm Longhouse Consulting, ET has put together a list of high-profile executives who launched their own ventures this year.
Several of these executives are still tinkering with and developing their startups in stealth mode.
Anshuman Das, founder and CEO of Longhouse Consulting, said there was an accelerated trend of executives from large companies or unicorns becoming founders.
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“Capital availability for an early-stage venture — seed capital and Series-A capital (both abroad and domestic) — is adequate, which is aiding several of these large company or unicorn executives to take the entrepreneurial risk,” Das said.
Early-stage VC firms value the experience of the executives who have built successful and scalable businesses.
“Beyond the pull factor of capital availability and right talent with ideas, there is a slight push factor also,” he said, pointing to the limited growth opportunity for such executives at unicorn companies amid a slowdown in funding, which has also created a crowding at the top management levels.
Executives turn founders
This year, former Flipkart senior vice president Prakash Sikaria, who was heading its social commerce offering, Shopsy, entered the entrepreneurial space with a new fintech venture.
The startup will look to bring various consumer financing products to consumers — inside and outside Flipkart. The online retailer is expected to be the majority investor in Sikaria’s venture.
Among other top executives who left their jobs to start up this year was Swiggy chief technology officer (CTO) Dale Vaz, who also launched a fintech startup, Aaritya Technologies.
Aaritya is likely to be a personalised trading platform and has already raised seed capital from the likes of Elevation Capital and Accel. Elevation and Accel are also investors in Swiggy.
“When I was at Swiggy, I had been thinking about what next in terms of my own career and looking at the next 10 years … one of the opportunities that came about was to do with this larger wave in the country where people are discovering the equity markets and new investors and traders are coming online for the first time,” Vaz told ET.
He said while investor enthusiasm was positive for his startup — despite the current funding environment — there was a strong insistence on building a sustainable business.
“Raising funds was not a challenge, but one of the consistent themes that I heard is that people are looking for companies that are growing sustainably. That’s a big change between the last couple of years and this year. So, for me, it’s about growing while also having a very careful view on the cost aspect of the business,” Vaz said.
The company is currently in the process of acquiring regulatory clearances and is expected to launch operations next year.
Long-time Axis Bank executive Siddharth Mehta quit his post as managing director of the lender’s Freecharge payments platform, and launched his own ‘credit on UPI’ (unified payments interface) startup, Kiwi.
Kiwi has raised almost $19 million in funding this year and opened its product to consumers in June.
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Executives running in stealth
While 2023 saw several exits at the senior level, there are many who have been quietly building their new ventures in stealth.
ETtechThese names include former Flipkart executive Amit Velingkar, Razorpay’s Vinay Shivappa and Nykaa’s Sanjay Suri, who are yet to announce their new ventures.
Fintech platform Yubi’s former CTO, Harsh Mittal, and Santosh Vaidyanathan, who was earlier CTO in residence at early-stage venture backer Elevation Capital, have been working on their new startup.