Consumer-Focused VC Firm Fireside Ventures May Raise $100 Mn Second Fund

Bengaluru-based venture capital firm Fireside Ventures is all set to make newer investments as it doubles up its ammunition with a $100 Mn fund. Interestingly, the firm’s first fund was closed at $48 Mn and the second fund would be over a double of that.

The reports have surfaced that the firm is well-positioned to announce the first close in a month’s time.

Launched in 2017 by Kanwaljit Singh, Vinay Singh and V.S. Kannan Sitaram, Fireside Ventures focuses on investing in consumer brands across sectors such as food and beverages, personal care, lifestyle and home products etc. The venture fund has been making early stage companies and has deployed $28.63 Bn across 18 investments till date.

The first fund worth INR 340 Cr ($48Mn) was raised by investors such as Unilever Ventures, Emami Ltd, ITC Ltd, Premji Invest, Westbridge Capital, Mariwala Family Office, Sanjiv Goenka Family Office, and Sunil Munjal’s Hero Enterprise Investment Office. Some of its portfolio investments include Yoga Bar, Bombay Shaving Company, boAt, Mama Earth etc.

Fireside Ventures has been planning to build a portfolio of about 30 companies, in which it will invest about $155K (INR 1 Cr) to begin with.

Earlier talking to Inc42, Kanwaljit Singh had said that he has been “very excited about the health and wellness space across categories such as personal care and beverages.”  He added, “We are trying to build an ecosystem of platforms and partner with the likes of Flipkart, Amazon, BigBasket, while building relationships with some marketing and PR firms.”

DataLabs by Inc42 noted that in H1 2019, the consumer services market raised $633.5 Mn across 40 deals. From 551 in 2017, the number of seed-stage deals have come down to 331 in 2018 — a 40% decline. On the other hand, the total amount invested in early-stage startups has gone up by a staggering 138%.

Fireside Ventures isn’t the only VC firm raising fresh funds as the startup ecosystem gets more active. Recently, Sequoia Capital was looking to raise an additional $200 Mn for its sixth fund.

As per DataLabs by Inc42, Sequoia Capital India was the most active VC with 23 funding deals. The second spot was bagged by Accel partners registering 17 deals followed by Blume Ventures, Beenext and Matrix Partners.

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