pi Ventures launches second fund to invest in disruptive deeptech startups

Early-stage venture fund pi Ventures, which invests in disruptive Artificial Intelligence and DeepTech startups, has launched their second fund. The fund received approvals from the Securities and Exchange Board of India in March 2021 for its second venture capital fund with a target corpus of Rs 565 crore and a green shoe option of Rs 185 crore. pi Ventures is looking to back around 25 global disruptors from India via this fund.

With Fund II, pi will continue to focus on early stage (seed/ pre-Series A/Series A) investments in startups focused on disruptive AI as well as ventures going beyond digital deep tech into - space technologies, material science, Biotech and life sciences. With Fund 1, so far pi has invested in 13 category defining deep tech startups like Niramai, Locus, Wysa, Agnikul and Pyxis among others.

Established in 2016 by Manish Singhal, pi Ventures closed its Fund I of ₹225 Cr (US$30 million) in 2017-18. The first fund attracted several prominent investors from around the globe like CDC UK, IFC World Bank, SIDBI, Hero Enterprise chairman Sunil Kant Munjal, Electronic Development Fund (managed by Canbank Ventures), the corporate financing arm of Hero Electronix, In Colour Capital from Canada, Accel Partners and prominent family offices and entrepreneurs such as Binny Bansal, Bhupen Shah, Raghuveer Tarra, Ullas Kamath to name a few.

With Fund I, pi has pioneered applied AI investments in India and has created a reputation as one of the foremost deeptech focused venture funds in the country. To continue supporting early-stage entrepreneurs in this space and scaling this now proven strategy, pi Ventures is now raising a second fund. With the pandemic giving massive acceleration to AI adoption, AI is shifting gears and will disrupt existing business models. pi Ventures’s latest fund aims to continue to back such disruptive tech ventures that are set out to create 10x differentiated businesses.

Manish Singhal, co-founder and Managing Partner at pi Ventures said, “We are very excited to launch our second fund and continue our mission to back startups which are creating global solutions from India. With AI and other technologies steadily maturing, we can expect some interesting applications in the coming days. With this fund we aim to support talented entrepreneurs who are creating disruptive products that are solving big fundamental problems, with unique solutions on the back of technology innovations. So far our investment strategy has worked extremely well and we have a healthy portfolio of companies that have scaled massively despite the current pandemic situation. Over the last two years, we have built a strong team that has delivered outstanding performance thereby strengthening our vision of helping make India a DeepTech nation.”