India-based early stage venture fund pi Ventures has received a commitment of around $12 million for its second fund from the ‘Fund of Funds for Startups’ managed by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
Launched in 2016, the ‘Fund of Funds for Startups’ was introduced to support development and growth of innovation driven enterprises. The fund has a corpus of around $1.2 billion for contribution to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. SIDBI acts as an operating manager of the fund.
pi Ventures will continue to focus on early-stage investments with this fund, focusing on disruptive AI and other forms of deep tech across sectors including blockchain, spacetech, biotech, and material science with a plan to invest in 20-25 such startups in the coming two to three years.
The company last raised $2.6 million for its second fund from Belgian conglomerate Colruyt Group’s IT arm. BII, Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF, Accel, entrepreneurs and family offices, and senior leaders from IBM, Facebook, and Google have also backed the fund.
pi Ventures announced the first close of its second fund at $40 million in January last year. With Colruyt’s investment, the fund is on track to hit its final close in the second quarter of 2023 at Rs 675-750 crore.
The fund has so far committed to investing in seven startups, including ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Silence Laboratories, and Preimage.
Established in 2016, pi Ventures’s first fund exceeded its target and was oversubscribed, with the backing of global investors including CDC UK, IFC World Bank, SIDBI, ICC, Accel Partners, and prominent family offices and entrepreneurs.