Fireside Ventures closes Rs 340-cr fund

Fireside Ventures, an early stage venture fund focused on consumer brands, today said it has closed its first fund with a corpus of Rs 340 crore.

The Fireside fund is anchored by marquee investors including Premji Invest, Westbridge Capital, Mariwala Family Office, Unilever Ventures, Emami Ltd, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Family Office, Sunil Munjal's Hero Enterprise Investment Office and ITC Ltd, it said in a statement.

The entity has also set up its advisory board that comprises industry veterans like Amit Agarwal (Amazon Senior Vice President and Country Manager India), Harsh Mariwala (Chairman of Marico) and Sri Rajan (Chairman of Bain & Company India), it added.

"Fireside Ventures targets to invest in 20-25 consumer brand businesses from this fund over the next two to three years," the statement said.

The portfolio companies will get access to Fireside Circle'- comprising a strong fund team of consumer brand building experts, deep domain specialist mentors and a partner network which will help companies in areas like brand building, distribution, manufacturing, digital marketing etc.

Fireside Ventures' current portfolio includes Yoga Bar, Samosa Singh, Goodness Beverages, Design Caf, Bombay Shaving Company, Mama Earth, Vahdam Teas, Kwik 24, Magic Crate and Frog Bikes.

Fireside noted that there has been a secular shift in the consumer buying behaviour with young brands also emerging on the back of growing modern retail infrastructure and the emergence of the digital universe.

"Fireside believes that these macro trends will enable a large number of innovative and disruptive brands to be launched in India by enterprising entrepreneurs and wants to be a key player in supporting the brands," it said.