pi Ventures, India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & IoT focused early stage venture fund, has announced the final close of their first fund at INR 225 cr, exceeding the initial target of INR 195 cr. CDC Group UK invested INR 40 Cr in pi Ventures recently. The other key contributors to the fund include Chairman of Hero Enterprise Sunil Kant Munjal, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Electronic Development Fund (managed by Canbank Ventures), SIDBI, prominent family offices from USA, Canada, Singapore & India and leading entrepreneurs like Mohandas Pai, Binny Bansal, Deep Kalra, Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Bhupen Shah among others. The fund is co-sponsored by In Color Capital of Canada. The fund has received 60% of its corpus from Institutional investors and majority from Indian LPs.
pi Ventures plans to invest in 18-20 deep tech startups in India in the next 3-4 years with a significant portion allocated for follow-ons as well.pi team will continue to back startups in health-tech, logistics, retail, fin-tech and enterprise sectors.
The fund was founded by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni. Abishek Surendran joined the fund as a partner in 2017. Combined, they bring several decades of experience in technology, products and investing. The team is further supported by Shamik Sharma, ex-Chief Product & Technology Officer, Myntra who is a Venture Partner in the fund.
Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures, said, “We are thankful of the support from like-minded individuals and partners who believe in our investment thesis of backing innovation and disruption that solves real world problems through Applied AI. India AI eco-system is at an interesting intersection of data, talent and market need. We are very excited to have an opportunity to back startups which are creating global solutions from India.”
