A major development coming in from the Private Equity investment market. Lee Fixel, the long time Tiger Global veteran, is leaving the PE firm. The same was informed by the firm to its clients via a letter, to which Reuters has gained access.
Fixel has been with Tiger Global for well over a decade, joining the firm back in 2006. He has been spearheading most of the firm’s major and notable investments in startups as well as established businesses, globally. According to the letter, Scott Shleifer and Chase Coleman will continue as co-portfolio managers of Tiger Global’s private equity business, with Shleifer to take over as its head, according to the letter.
As per the excerpts accessed by Reuters, the letter said,
We are grateful for Lee’s innumerable contributions, Lee has been a driving force behind the expansion of Tiger Global’s private equity investing activities in the United States and India, and he has distinguished himself as a world-class investor.
Fixel, 39, is speculated on planning to invest his own money and “may start an investment firm in the future,” Tiger Global wrote in the letter.
For most of those who have been even slightly informed of the global startup investment scene, Lee Fixel is a familiar name. Even though he rarely makes public appearances (unlike most high profile investors), he has been a known and respected figure — specially in the Silicon Valley, and India.
He has been largely credited for spotting and then investing heavily into India’s largely nascent consumer internet industry, way back in 2007. His earliest investments — Just Dial and MakeMyTrip, have largely been the defining moments for Indian’s internet industry. Both companies continued to do extremely well, with the later going to get listed on NASDAQ.
Fixel has been instrumental in carrying out Tiger Global’s drive to turn Asia and invest in a large chunk of Indian startups. He drove investment in Flipkart (later acquired by Walmart), Ola among a lot of other high profile Indian startups. The PE firm has invested over $2 Billion into Indian startups over the past decade and has reaped massive dividends from a few of its investments.
Tiger Global was founded by Coleman in 2000. Shleifer joined two years later, and Fixel came into the company in 2006.
There has been no immediate comment or statement from either Tiger Global or Lee Fixel himself. We will be updating the story as an when there is more development coming in.
