Peak XV sees another exit: Surge Partner Pieter Kemps to leave firm

Peak XV Partners’ (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) Pieter Kemps is set to leave the company and its seed-stage accelerator, Surge, after over a decade at the firm, adding to a long list of senior-level departures. 

Kemps, who started in Singapore with Peak and has been in the Netherlands since the pandemic, is stepping down to explore entrepreneurial opportunities in the European Union, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told YourStory. 

Peak XV declined to comment on YourStory's queries on the matter.

During his over a decade-long stint at Sequoia Capital and later Peak XV, Kemps has overseen the company’s Southeast Asian portfolio of companies and led investments into companies like Singapore-based Horizon Quantum Computing and Hong Kong-based Wati.io.

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While Kemps has not been involved with the firm’s Indian portfolio—which remains one of the largest VC portfolios in the country— his departure comes on the heels of a series of senior and mid-level management changes at the firm. In February this year, Managing Directors Abheek Anand and Shailesh Lakhani left the firm. In May, Suraj Agarwalla, Vice President of the Growth team, left the company. 

Apart from Kemps, the Surge team is headed by Managing Directors Rajan Anandan and Shailendra Singh, with Aaditya Sood, who is a venture partner at the firm. According to sources, Surge is also set to launch its eleventh cohort in the coming weeks.

Additionally, the firm also has a strong pipeline of startups looking to go public, including Wakefit, Pine Labs—of which the firm is set to be the biggest winner among institutional investors—Bluestone, and Groww. 

Moreover, Peak XV is also raising its maiden fund post its split from Sequoia Capital, reportedly with a target corpus of $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion, focusing on early-stage investments in India and Southeast Asia.