Pi Ventures announces final close of its first fund at Rs 225 crore

AI-focused Pi Ventures plans to invest in 18-20 startups in the healthtech, logistics, retail, fintech and enterprise sectors over the next three to four years. 

Pi Ventures, the Aritificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and IoT-focused early stage VC fund, on Monday announced the final close of its first fund at Rs 225 crore. A press statement shared by the company stated that this amount exceeded its initial target of Rs 195 crore. The CDC Group UK had recently invested Rs 40 crore in Pi Ventures. 

The fund intends to invest in 18 to 20 deep tech startups in India across the next three to four years. A significant portion has also been allocated for follow-on rounds. The team hopes to back startups in logistics, healthtech, fintech, enterprise sectors, and retail. 

Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, Pi Ventures, said in a press statement, “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's AI ecosystem is at an interesting intersection of data, talent and market need. We are very excited to have an opportunity to back startups creating global solutions from India.”

The fund is co-sponsored by Color Capital of Canada. The other investors in the fund include International Finance Corporation, Sunil Kant Munjal Chairman of Hero Enterprise, Mohandas Pai, Deep Kalra, SIDBI, family offices from Canada, Singapore, US and India, Electronic Development Fund, Sanjeev Bikchandani, and Bhupen Shah. 

Close to 60 percent of the fund’s corpus was raised from institutional investors and majority from Indian LPs.

Founded by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, Abhishek Surendran joined the fund as a partner last year. The trio bring in several  decades of experience in technology, products, and investing. The team also has Shamik Sharma, ex-Chief Product and Technology Officer, Myntra, who is a Venture Partner in the fund.

Some of their announcements include SigTuple, a healthcare startup that uses deeptech; Zenatix, a data-driven energy efficiency company acquired by Hero Electronix; CustomerSuccessBox, a customer success platform that helps B2B SaaS companies reduce, churn and grow their recurring revenue by applying AI and ML; Locus.sh a logistics optimisation platform; Niramai, a non-touch, non-radiation-based breast cancer screening startup; and ten3T, a medical grade wearable device company.