- ByStartupStory | May 9, 2024
Ishan Preet Singh, cofounder of the educational technology startup FrontRow, is making his way back to venture capital by rejoining Lightspeed India as an investor. Singh, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi, made this announcement through a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, May 8.
At Lightspeed India, Singh will focus on investing in early-stage startups, with a particular emphasis on sectors such as consumer internet and artificial intelligence (AI). This move marks a significant return to venture capital, a field he temporarily left to focus on building FrontRow.
“I’m going to spend the next decade investing in early stage startups in India. I’m excited to be back at Lightspeed India investing across consumer and AI, working with an amazing team to help even more amazing founders,” Singh expressed in his post.
His decision comes after a reflective period where Singh engaged with various startups, helping friends build their companies. This experience reignited his passion for the foundational phases of startup development, which he found most fulfilling.
“In the past few months I spent a bunch of time helping friends building companies and I realised I loved the zero to one parts of a startup and genuinely missed investing. I’d always loved being an investor, but hadn’t felt particularly useful working with portfolio companies. This was one of the main reasons I hadn’t stayed on in VC. In retrospect, this was because a) I had no idea what I was doing, and b) just couldn’t empathise with founders. But FrontRow changed both of these,” Singh revealed, sharing his renewed perspective on investment and support for startups.
FrontRow, launched by Singh in 2019, was designed as an after-school learning platform. However, despite its promising start, the venture faced challenges such as slow user growth, increasing marketing expenses, and stagnant revenue, leading to its closure last year.
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