Rajan Anandan quits as Google India head, to join VC firm Sequoia

Rajan Anandan, the Vice President for Google South East Asia and India, has resigned to join the VC firm Sequoia Capital’s India and SEA wing. He joins Sequoia as managing director and will be part of its leadership team.

He had joined Google in 2011 when the company was not doing too well on revenues and India’s internet journey was still developing. He has often been credited for having catapulted Google’s growth in India, over his tenure of eight years in the company.

According to an official blog from the company, Surge has an offer $1.5 million of seed capital along with “company-building workshops, global immersion trips and support from a community of exceptional founders.”

The managing director at Sequoia, Shailendra J Singh, in a post on LinkedIn said: “Rajan’s deep understanding of technology, significant operating expertise and a track record of growing tech businesses across the region will help Surge founders scale and build the transformational businesses of tomorrow.”

The president of Google Asia Pacific, Scott Beaumont, in his statement said, “We are grateful to Rajan for his huge contribution to Google over the past eight years, His entrepreneurial zeal and leadership has helped grow the overall internet ecosystem in India and Southeast Asia, and we wish him all the best in his new adventures.”

While Anandan will stay on at Google until the end of April, the company has appointed Vikas Agnihotri, Country Director, Sales as the interim MD.