Why an AI-focused venture fund just raised $13m, backed by India’s top tech mavens

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Top tech entrepreneurs including Flipkart’s Binny Bansal, MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra, Zomato parent Info Edge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani, and former Infosys chief Mohandas Pai are among those who have come together to back an AI-focused venture fund in India, helping it raise US$13 million.

The total corpus of US$30 million is expected to close this year.

Founded by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, Pi Ventures says it will invest in early-stage startups that focus on solving problems in healthcare, logistics, retail and fintech using AI, machine learning, and IoT. The Bengaluru-based VC plans to invest in 18-20 startups from this fund over three to four years.

See: What I’ve learned from interacting with more than 100 AI startups

Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming the order of the day in tech circles, as customer-facing businesses like ecommerce lose some steam. Global giants like Google and Facebook are looking to use deep machine learning and AI to solve problems; investors are looking to fund deep tech startups as well.

In India, too, investors can’t wait to back new-age technologies as the country shakes off its “back office of the world” image.

See: AI and IoT define the new India – not outsourcing or ecommerce

Pi Ventures has made three investments so far in the healthcare and energy-efficiency space- SigTuple, Zenatix and ten3T.

“India is the dark horse in the AI race, given it has lot of data, brilliant data science talent[…]and we are happy to play a part in helping India leapfrog with AI,” Pi Ventures founder Manish Singhal said.