Fireside Ventures closes its second fund at $118 Mn

Early-stage venture capital firm Fireside Ventures has announced the close of its second fund Fireside Fund II at Rs 863 crore or $118 million.

Investors in the second fund include Small Industries Development Bank of India’s (SIDBI) Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), Investment Corporation of Dubai, Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF, Bajaj Holdings and Investment Limited, ITC Limited, L’Oreal, Pidilite group, Premji Invest, and a US university endowment.

Fireside II made its first closure at Rs 440 crore ($60 million) in November 2019. The Bangalore-based firm had also announced then that the corpus of Fireside II was expected to be 2X that of the first fund.

So far, Fireside II has 4 portfolio investments -- Fable Street, SARVA Yoga, Gynoveda, and Slurrp Farm. The firm will invest in 15-20 consumer startups while focusing on digital-first brands.

“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,” said Kanwaljit Singh, Founder & Managing Partner at Fireside Ventures in a press statement.

In February 2018, Fireside had closed its first fund, Fireside I worth Rs 340 crore in which Westbridge Capital, Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala’s family office, Emami, Hero Enterprise Investment Office, ITC, and the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Family Office comprised the marquee investors.

According to the company’s website, Fireside has invested in 22 brands since its inception in 2017, including boAt, Mamaearth, Vahdam Teas, Yoga Bar, Samosa Singh, SLAY Coffee, Design Café, Bombay Shaving Company, Magic Crate, Pipa Bella, Azani, BluSpider, The Ayurveda Experience, Kapiva Ayurveda, Tasty Tales, and Kwik 24, etc.