Fireside Ventures Announces Close Of Second Fund At $118 Mn The platform will invest in 15-20 consumer brand startups while continuing to keep its focus on digital-first brands

Bengaluru-based multi-stage venture fund Fireside Ventures, which invests across the early growth stages of businesses with a focus on consumer brands, on Wednesday announced the close of its second fund (Fireside Fund II) at $118 million.

The Fireside Fund II had investors such as Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) operated by SIDBI under the aegis of government of India's initiative "Start-up India Action Plan,' Investment Corporation of Dubai, Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF, Bajaj Holdings, and Investment Limited, ITC Ltd, L'OREAL, Pidilite group, Premji Invest, and a large US university endowment.

The platform will invest in 15-20 consumer brand startups while continuing to keep its focus on digital-first brands.

The pandemic said to have further validated its investment thesis of investing in digital-first consumer brands. Fireside believes that the over-arching trends and shifts seen in consumer demand for an extra dose of "wellness and goodness' in the products and services they consume are here to stay. As direct-to-consumer (D2C) and e-commerce become more mainstream, the brands can leverage technology and data analytics to offer even more relevant and personalized offerings to the consumers, the statement said.

"We are indeed very delighted to get the support of our existing investors and we extend a very warm welcome to all our new investors. At Fireside Ventures, we are equally proud of all the founders from our portfolio companies, it is indeed remarkable to see their sheer guts and grit last year as they pivoted, planned, and programmed them to survive and be successful as well. A large number of our portfolio companies saw positive tailwinds during and post the pandemic," shared Kanwaljit Singh, founder and managing partner, Fireside Ventures.

Launched in 2017, the company has invested in 22 brands and the Fireside Fund II has received investment interest from more than 1500 companies so far and deeply evaluated over 300 of them before making the four investments. The Fund II portfolio companies to date are Fable Street, SARVA Yoga, Gynoveda, and Slurrp Farm.

"We are now eager to go all out and partner with young Indian entrepreneurs who are creating exciting new digital-first brands across the consumption spectrum and are consciously building brands that focus on good for consumers and good for the world," Singh added.

The company has maintained to have achieved the final closing of its first fund in February 2018 with a corpus of ~$50 million. They received investment interest from over 2,000 companies and deeply evaluated over 400 of them before making the 18 investments. The deal pipeline was across the consumer wallet. About 95 per cent of the investible corpus of Fund I have been deployed and the remaining 5 per cent is reserved for follow-ons.