Fireside Ventures closes Fund IV at $253M, ramps up early-stage consumer bets
Fireside Ventures has closed its fourth fund at Rs 2,265 crore as it steps up dealmaking across seed to Series A rounds. The Kanwaljit Singh-led fund plans to back 10 to 12 startups annually and deepen follow-on investments.
Early-stage consumer VC Fireside Ventures on Tuesday announced the close of its IV fund today with a corpus of Rs 2,265 crore (about $253 million) as it bets big on the consumption opportunity in India.
The fund, which is already in the process of being deployed with early-stage dealmaking, will close about 10-12 deals a year. Fireside, which largely participates in seed and pre-series A rounds, is also expanding its follow-on cheques to Series A rounds, as part of its larger thesis to be founder-first and build from scratch.
"There will be companies that find the right product market fit in deep markets, and these are emerging fund after fund, so it is not a one-off for us. In those cases, we can see returns of 10x, 15x, and 20x. But for the bulk of our portfolio, we are modelling for a five to seven or eight times type of return. And that really drives the overall success of the strategy," shared Kanwaljit Singh, Founder & Managing Partner, Fireside Ventures, at a press briefing.
Its first fund, which is yet to realise all its exits, clocked a Distributed to Paid-In Capital of 3.6x, which essentially means it has already returned three times the value to its investor.
Fireside's current portfolio of about 60 brands is valued at more than $7 billion, and has clocked $1.6 billion in revenue across brands. About 50% of its portfolio companies have already crossed the Rs 100 crore in ARR mark.
The Bengaluru-based fund secured commitment from a mix of global and domestic investors, including US University Endowments, Sovereign funds from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as financial institutions like HarbourVest, Waterfield, and Fidelity International. A host of consumer-focused corporations like Sharrp Ventures, Mirabilis, and Emami Limited also participated.
Launched in 2017, the fund currently holds AUM of about $650 million across its four funds across consumer categories.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan