Fund II of Fireside is anchored by Indian and global investors and institutions.
Business
Standard : Fireside Ventures, an early-stage investor focused
exclusively on consumer brands, has announced the first close of its
second fund, which has a target of investing $100 million. The total
commitments have crossed $60 million to date. Fireside Fund II is
anchored by Indian and global
investors and institutions.
The
venture capital firm said the participation of global partners and
the recent investment by French personal care company L'Oréal was a
validation of their confidence in new-age consumer brands and the
strong performance of the fund and its portfolio companies.
“We
have witnessed a lot of interest from domestic and global investors,
including family offices, strategics and large institutions, in
investing in Fireside Fund II,” said Kanwaljit Singh, managing
partner, Fireside
Ventures. “The second fund aims to double down on the success
of the first and follow the same strategy of investing in exciting
young millennial brands and helping them with strong ecosystem
support. We are also starting to see credible opportunities for
Indian brands to go global.”
Fireside
also announced its first Fund II investment — in Gynoveda, a
personal care brand built around the core objective of bringing
Ayurveda specifically in the area of menstrual health. The company
has built the world’s first ‘period bot’ which helps diagnose
specific menstrual issues and then prescribes a personalised regime
of Ayurvedic supplements to help alleviate the issue.
“We
are expanding and developing the portfolio across consumer wallets
and we believe brands in superfoods, personalised beauty, fashion and
personal care will be the new frontrunners in the consumer segment,”
said Singh.
Fireside
achieved the final closing of its first fund in February 2018 with a
corpus of $50 million. The firm said it had received investment
interest from over 2,000 companies and deeply evaluated over 400 of
them before making the 18 investments. About 90 per cent of the
investible corpus of Fund I has been deployed and the remaining 10
per cent is reserved for follow-ons. The fund has invested in diverse
companies catering to the consumer segment, including boAt audio,
Mama Earth, Vahdam Teas, Design Café, Alpha Vector (Frog Bikes) and
Yoga Bar. In terms of exits, one of Fireside’s early investments,
Kwik 24, was acquired by online grocery firm BigBasket in 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment