Fireside Ventures closes its second fund for consumer brands at $118m

Early-stage VC fund Fireside Ventures announced the final close of its second fund at roughly US$118 million.

Investors in Fireside Fund II include the Investment Corporation of Dubai, Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF, Bajaj Holdings and Investment, ITC Limited, L’Oréal, Pidilite group, Premji Invest, a US university endowment, and Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), which is operated by the Small Industrial Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

From left: Fireside Ventures venture partner Kannan Sitaram, chief financial officer and partner Dipanjan Basu, partner Vinay Singh, and managing partner Kanwaljit Singh / Photo credit: Fireside Ventures

The new fund will invest in 15 to 20 digital-first consumer brand startups across sectors such as food and beverage, beauty and personal care, and lifestyle and home products, the company said in a statement.

Fireside Fund II has four companies in its portfolio so far: workwear brand FableStreet, wellness startup Sarva, healthtech startup Gynoveda, and millet-based packaged-food startup Slurrp Farm.

With over 1,500 companies expressing interest, the VC firm evaluated over 300 pitches before making its first batch of investments.

“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 [what is] good for consumers and good for the world,” said Kanwaljit Singh, founder and managing partner at Fireside Ventures.

Launched in 2017, the India-based firm invests in the early-growth stages of businesses, with a focus on consumer brands.

It closed its first fund at US$50 million in February 2018. About 95% of Fund I has been deployed into 18 companies.

Since its inception, Fireside Ventures has invested in 22 brands, and the cumulative value of its portfolio has crossed US$1 billion, representing an 8x growth since the VC firm had invested in these companies, said Singh.