Pi Ventures raises Rs 300 Cr to invest in 20-25 deeptech startups

Pi Ventures, which invests in deeptech startups, raised Rs 300 crore ($40 million) from Binny Bansal, Flipkart's former boss, Mamaearth's Varun Alagh, and MakeMyTrip's Deep Kalra, in the first close of their second fund.

Senior leaders from social media giant Facebook, Google and IBM, among others also participated in the round, according to Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, Pi Ventures. The fund's base target is Rs 565 crore ($75 million) with a greenshoe option of $25 million, to take the fund size to $100 million.

"We take the learnings from our first fund portfolio to scale on the now proven strategies. We are always on the lookout for talented entrepreneurs with unconventional ideas and who are creating disruptive products that solve big global fundamental problems with innovative technology-backed solutions,” Manish said.

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Founded in 2016 by Manish, who earlier founded investment platform LetsVenture, Pi Ventures focuses on backing deeptech startups that are in the early stages. So far, the company has backed spacetech firm Agnikul, Locus, a supply-chain software as a service (SaaS) player, and Pyxis, among others.

So far, one investment has been made from the fund. Pi Ventures plans on deploying funds across 20-25 startups, between seed and Series A rounds, operating in artificial intelligence (AI). The investment firm will also back firms functioning in blockchain, biotech and material sciences.

In the last one year, many investment firms have raised massive rounds as euphoria around the Indian startup ecosystem refrains from relaxing. Last year, Chiratae Ventures closed its fourth fund at $337 million, which was oversubscribed by 25 percent. Sequoia Capital India, which has backed startups including doctor aggregator platform Practo and logistics firm BlackBuck, closed $195 million in their second seed fund, in March 2021.