• The Bengaluru-based VC fund invests exclusively in early-stage startups, and helps emerging brands make inroads into the competitive consumer retail market
• Fireside Ventures usually makes investments of $4-5 million across pre-Series A and Series A stages

Bengaluru: Consumer retail-focused venture capital (VC) fund–Fireside Ventures–has raised commitments worth $60 million for its second Fund, which has a target corpus of $100 million in total, according to a company statement on Tuesday.

The Bengaluru-based VC fund invests exclusively in early-stage startups, and Helps Emerging Brands make inroads into the Competitive Consumer Retail market. It usually makes investments of $4-5 million across pre-Series A and Series A stages.

‘Fireside Fund II’ is anchored by Indian and global investors and institutions, the fund said in its statement without naming any limited partners.

Mint had first reported about Fireside’s plans for its second fund in August. The VC fund recently secured an undisclosed sum of money from French personal care company L’Oréal in September for its second fund.

According to Kanwaljit Singh, managing partner, Fireside Ventures, the second fund will double down on investments into young millennial brands and help scale the brand reach across its target segment. “We are also starting to see credible opportunities for Indian brands to go global… We have witnessed a lot of interest from domestic and global investors including family offices, strategics, large Institutions, etc. in investing in Fireside Fund II,” he added in a statement.

Singh also pointed out that the Fireside portfolio will look to expand into newer brands across segments such as super-foods, personalized beauty, fashion and personal care.

Fireside’s first fund had a corpus of ₹340 crore (approximately $48 million) and was backed by fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands such as Unilever Ventures, Emami Ltd and ITC Ltd. Other investors including Premji Invest, Westbridge Capital, Mariwala Family Office, Sanjiv Goenka Family Office, and Sunil Munjal’s Hero Enterprise Investment Office had also invested in the first fund.

Led by consumer industry veteran Singh, besides Vinay Singh and V.S. Kannan Sitaram, Fireside Ventures was founded in 2017. It already has investments across segments such as personal care, processed foods, lifestyle, and home products.

The fund’s portfolio includes brands such as Yoga Bar, Samosa Singh, Bombay Shaving Co., Mama Earth, and Vahdam Teas.

One of Fireside’s early investment Kwik 24, was acquired by BigBasket in 2018. Till date, Fireside has made investments into 18 companies. For its first fund, the VC fund claims to have received investment interest from around 2,000 companies. Around 90% of the investible corpus of Fund I have been deployed and the remaining 10% is reserved for follow-ons.

With the close of the second fund, Fireside also announced its newest portfolio brand Gynoveda – an Ayurvedic personal care brand that is premised on menstrual health. Gynoveda claims to have built the world’s first ‘period bot’ which helps diagnose menstrual issues and then prescribe a personalized regime of Ayurvedic supplements to help alleviate menstrual issues.