Recently, pi Ventures announced the launch of its second fund and is looking to raise up to Rs 750 crore in this fund. pi Ventures is an early-stage venture fund focused on investing in disruptive ideas leveraging machine learning, AI and IoT.
According to sources, the firm on April 26 said that it plans to raise Rs 565 crore with an option to raise Rs 185 crore more (known as greenshoe), compared to its first fund of Rs 225 crore which was raised in 2018.
Manish Singhal, co-founder and managing partner at pi Ventures stated, “We are clear that we want to invest in AI and technology that really moves the needle, and is really transformational. We don’t want to invest in incremental technology or whatever the market finds hot at that point.”
The early-stage venture fund has previously invested in various AI-based firms, such as Locus, Sig Tuple, among others. The co-founder also stated that he is aiming to raise the entire fund in the next one year, and for a first close of about Rs 200-250 crore in the next quarter or so.
“In the next decade or two, India will be the deep tech nation of the world. All our companies are solving inherently global issues. And that is part of the reason why this second fund is larger. We want to enable that opportunity,” Singhal said.
In a report, the venture stated that it was targeting to close Fund II this fiscal year. Domestic family offices, high net-worth individuals, and entrepreneurs have evinced interest in the fund, it said. The firm said it will continue to back companies in the early-stage companies and focus beyond digital deep tech startups to space technologies, material sciences, biotech, and life sciences. It plans to back 25 startups through the fund.
