Temasek India Private Equity gains MD and loses CIO

Temasek Holdings Advisors India, TemasekÆs private equity arm in the country, has hired Dinesh Vaswani from Bessemer Venture Partners as managing director. Vaswani joins Manish Kejriwal who leads the Mumbai operation. Vaswani will fill the gap created by the departure of chief investment officer, Akash Prakash who has been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Vaswani himself had moved to Bessemer as entrepreneur-in-residence in September 2004 from Walden International where he was managing director. Bessemer is one of Silicon ValleyÆs early venture capital firms and Vaswani came on board to evaluate investment opportunities among firms with US-India cross-border activities. Vaswani had previously joined Walden in early 2002 with dual responsibility for India (as country head) and general partner responsible for software investments in Southeast Asia. He relocated to India from Silicon Valley with Walden. Vaswani brings to the table a combination of investment experience and operating experience in the software/technology industry. Vaswani has an MBA from Wharton and a BBA from the University of Texas, Austin.

Meanwhile, Akash Prakash, the former chief investment officer for Temasek in India has resigned. Prakash had previously been based in Singapore with the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC). Prakash joined Temasek in early 2005 and worked with the firm on a number of the investments it closed in India over the course of 2005 and early 2006. Prakash is leaving to pursue entrepreneurial ambitions and will be launching a fund shortly - though no details are currently available.