How Sequoia’s Shailendra Singh pushed out Zilingo’s Ankiti Bose

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Editor's note: Late last week Sequoia Capital India managing director Shailendra Singh stepped down from his board position at Zilingo, the Singapore-headquartered fashion e-commerce startup. Temasek Holdings’s Xu Wei Yang and Burda Principal Investments’s Albert Shyy also resigned as board members. All three funds are significant investors in the company. For two weeks now, Zilingo has been the subject of a controversy after its chief executive officer, 29-year-old co-founder Ankiti Bose, was suspended. This was after Zilingo’s board, at Sequoia’s behest, initiated an investigation into the company’s accounting practices.  Two people with knowledge of the matter say that Bose’s suspension is the result of a rift between her and Sequoia’s Singh. For the past 14 months, the two have been at loggerheads, they say. Singh has been making the case for Bose to be replaced by an outsider CEO and pushing for a merger with another Sequoia portfolio company; things came to a head some weeks back when she refused multiple demands to step aside, they add. Both individuals requested anonymity. An email with a detailed list of questions sent to Zilingo …