Peak XV: Why the Venture Giants Are Fighting Over AI

When Sequoia Capital decided last year to split from its regional units, many assumed it was a legal formality meant to simplify management. Reality turned out to be far more dramatic. Peak XV, which inherited Sequoia's Indian and Southeast Asian portfolio, is going through an internal transformation that looks more like a tectonic shift than a planned restructuring. The departure of key partners such as Shailendra Singh and G.V. Ravishankar from their board positions is not just a personnel rotation. It is a clear signal that a clash of visions has been building inside the fund, and AI has become the bone of contention.

Venture capital has always been a game of egos and predictions, but now the stakes have skyrocketed. Peak XV openly says its new strategy is built around artificial intelligence. That sounds logical, but the devil is in the execution. To play in this league for real, the fund had to step outside its comfortable Indian market and open an office in San Francisco. It is an acknowledgment of an obvious fact: today you cannot build a global technology empire without direct access to the talent and compute of Silicon Valley. India remains the fund's largest market, but its brain center is inevitably shifting west.

The disagreements among partners did not come out of nowhere. While one part of the leadership probably wanted to stick with proven investment models in the consumer sector and SaaS, others pushed for aggressively pouring resources into AI startups. The problem is that AI demands entirely different approaches to assessing risk and payback periods. This is not ten-minute food delivery, where the unit economics are well understood. Here you are betting on foundational technologies that can either upend the world or burn hundreds of millions of dollars with nothing visible to show for it. The old guard, it seems, was not ready for that level of uncertainty.

The move to the US and the focus on AI are Peak XV's attempt to reinvent itself. The fund is trying to prove that it is no longer just a regional branch of an old empire but an independent, world-class player. But that comes at a high price. Losing people who spent decades building relationships with founders in India may weaken the fund's position on its home turf. Competitors such as Accel and Lightspeed are just waiting for a chance to seize the initiative while Peak XV is busy setting up its San Francisco office and searching for new meaning.

The industry is watching this maneuver closely. If Peak XV manages to integrate into the American AI ecosystem while keeping its influence in India, it will become a unique bridge between the world's two largest tech hubs. If the internal disputes continue, we will watch the slow decline of one of the region's most influential investors. The venture world does not forgive slowness, and in the AI era time runs several times faster. Either you adapt and change the team to fit new tasks, or you go down in history as the fund that missed the biggest revolution of the decade.

Bottom line: Peak XV is staking its reputation and stability on a chance to lead the AI race, but will its expertise in the US be enough to compete with the local predators?