Early-stage fund pi Ventures raises Rs 100 crore from Sidbi's startup fund
The Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) of the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), an early-stage venture capital firm, has committed Rs 100 crore (about $12.2 million) to pi Ventures' second fund. The new funding is around 2.5 times what FFS contributed to the original fund. Two weeks prior to the announcement, the Bengaluru-based company which focuses on deep tech and artificial intelligence raised Rs 22 crore from Belgium's Colruyt Group in the same fund.
Manish Singhal, a partner at pi Ventures, would not say exactly how much of the corpus has been replenished by the most recent investment, but he did say that it has almost reached its ultimate close, which is in the area of Rs 675 crore to Rs 750 crore. In January 2022, Pi Ventures stated that it had raised Rs 303.5 crore ($40 million) in its first close, with money coming from family offices, high net worth individuals, entrepreneurs, and venture capital firm Accel. The second fund was introduced in March 2021 with a Rs. 750 crore final target corpus.
The fund has gotten funding from investors like BII and Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF. Binny Bansal, the founder of Flipkart, Varun Alagh, the CEO of Info Edge, Hitesh Oberoi, and Deep Kalra, the creator of MakeMyTrip are among the businesspeople and family offices that are supporting the fund.
pi Ventures will keep using this cash to concentrate on making seed, pre-Series A, and series A investments. The fund will keep a strong emphasis on deeptech, including blockchain, space technology, biotechnology, and material sciences, among others.
Pi Ventures has so far invested money from its second fund in seven firms, including ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Quiet Labs, Preimage, and three additional companies. By 2026, it wants to have invested in 20–25 more of these firms. Pi Ventures, which Singhal founded in 2016, closed its $30 million (Rs 225 crore) Fund I in 2018. The initial fund has invested in 15 deeptech businesses, including the Niramai breast cancer screening platform, the Pixis codeless AI infrastructure for growth marketing, the Wysa chatbot for mental health services, and the Agnikul space tech startup.
Sidbi's FFS was introduced in January 2016 and has a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore that will be used to contribute to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) authorised by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). "We are thrilled to once again welcome FFS into our second fund. The confidence in our team and in our investment approach strengthens our commitment to helping bright businesspeople develop breakthrough products that address important real-world issues via creative use of technology, Singhal continued.
That deep tech-focused venture capital firms are expanding their footprint in India at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is making waves in the tech industry as a result of the introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT. Tracxn, a platform for data on privately owned businesses, Indian startups delivering AI- or machine learning-based solutions have so far raised $270 million this calendar year.
Manish Singhal, a partner at pi Ventures, would not say exactly how much of the corpus has been replenished by the most recent investment, but he did say that it has almost reached its ultimate close, which is in the area of Rs 675 crore to Rs 750 crore. In January 2022, Pi Ventures stated that it had raised Rs 303.5 crore ($40 million) in its first close, with money coming from family offices, high net worth individuals, entrepreneurs, and venture capital firm Accel. The second fund was introduced in March 2021 with a Rs. 750 crore final target corpus.
The fund has gotten funding from investors like BII and Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF. Binny Bansal, the founder of Flipkart, Varun Alagh, the CEO of Info Edge, Hitesh Oberoi, and Deep Kalra, the creator of MakeMyTrip are among the businesspeople and family offices that are supporting the fund.
pi Ventures will keep using this cash to concentrate on making seed, pre-Series A, and series A investments. The fund will keep a strong emphasis on deeptech, including blockchain, space technology, biotechnology, and material sciences, among others.
Pi Ventures has so far invested money from its second fund in seven firms, including ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Quiet Labs, Preimage, and three additional companies. By 2026, it wants to have invested in 20–25 more of these firms. Pi Ventures, which Singhal founded in 2016, closed its $30 million (Rs 225 crore) Fund I in 2018. The initial fund has invested in 15 deeptech businesses, including the Niramai breast cancer screening platform, the Pixis codeless AI infrastructure for growth marketing, the Wysa chatbot for mental health services, and the Agnikul space tech startup.
Sidbi's FFS was introduced in January 2016 and has a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore that will be used to contribute to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) authorised by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). "We are thrilled to once again welcome FFS into our second fund. The confidence in our team and in our investment approach strengthens our commitment to helping bright businesspeople develop breakthrough products that address important real-world issues via creative use of technology, Singhal continued.
That deep tech-focused venture capital firms are expanding their footprint in India at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is making waves in the tech industry as a result of the introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT. Tracxn, a platform for data on privately owned businesses, Indian startups delivering AI- or machine learning-based solutions have so far raised $270 million this calendar year.
.jpg "Aquapulse : Pioneering Global Leadership in Seafood Exports Through Market Intelligence & Post Harvest Innovation")
.jpg "10 Dimensions Design : Pioneering Technology Integration in the Construction Industry")
