Pi Ventures has announced the final closing of its second fund at $85 million

Pi Ventures reported the first closure of its second round in January 2022, raising Rs 303.5 crore ($40 million) from Accel, entrepreneurs, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices.

Pi Ventures, an early-stage venture company that invests in Artificial Intelligence and deep tech firms, has announced the final closure of its second fund with a total commitment of Rs 702 crore ($85 million), exceeding the objective of Rs 565 crore.

BII, Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF (NIDIA), Accel, Colruyt, Premji Invest, as well as entrepreneurs and family offices, are among the institutional investors in the fund.

SIDBI has also returned as a prominent investor in Pi Ventures’ second fund, with a Rs 100 crore commitment from the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), which is almost 2.5 times what the FFS committed in the previous fund.

FFS’ investment was announced in April, only two weeks after the Bengaluru-based startup secured Rs 22 crore from Belgium’s Colruyt Group for its second fund.

Pi Ventures reported the first closure of its second round in January 2022, raising Rs 303.5 crore ($40 million) from Accel, entrepreneurs, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices.

With this latest fund, Pi Ventures will continue to focus on seed, pre-Series A, and Series A investments. The fund will continue to invest in AI and other types of deep technology across industries such as blockchain, space technology, biotech, and material sciences.

So far, the fund has made seven investments, including ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Silence Laboratories, Preimage, and Zero Cow Factory. It intends to invest in 20 to 25 such firms over the next two to three years.

“India is an excellent location for deep-tech startups.” “We are honored to play a role in putting India on the global deep tech map,” said Manish Singhal, Pi Ventures’ founding partner.

Pi Ventures, founded in 2016 by Singhal, closed its $30 million Fund I in 2018. The initial fund was invested in 15 deep tech businesses, including Niramai, Pixis, Wysa, Agnikul, and Locus.

On July 31, the Indian government released a draught national deep-tech startup strategy that proposes improvements in nine areas, including access to capital, improving the intellectual property regime, sustaining deep-tech firms, and facilitating shared infrastructure and resource sharing.