pi Ventures raises INR 22 crores from Belgium’s Colruyt Group

pi Ventures, which invests in disruptive Artificial Intelligence and DeepTech startups, has raised INR 22 Crores from Colruyt Group India, the Group’s extended IT arm based out of Hyderabad.

The investment comes after pi Ventures announced the first closing of its second fund at INR 303.5Cr (USD 40 Mn) in Jan 2022, raising funds from entrepreneurs, HNIs and Family Offices from across the globe. With the Colruyt’s investment, the fund is on track to do its final close in the second quarter of CY 2023 in the range of 675Cr to 750Cr. The fund is backed by BII, Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF (NIDIA), Accel, and entrepreneurs & family offices such as Binny Bansal, Varun Alagh, Samit Shetty, Rajesh Ranavat,, Anupam Mittal, Hemendra Kothari, Hitesh Oberoi, Ullas Kamath, Deep Kalra, senior leaders from IBM, Facebook and Google among others.

The fund will invest in start-ups focused on disruptive AI and other forms of deep tech across sectors including, but not limited to Blockchain, Spacetech, Biotech and Material Science among others. pi Ventures will continue to focus on early stage (seed/ pre-Series A/Series A) investments via this fund and so far has committed in seven startups - ImmunitoAI, Ottonomy.IO, Silence Laboratories, Preimage and three other ventures. Fund plans to invest in 20-25 such startups in the coming two to three years.

“Colruyt Group puts greater emphasis on pioneering tech-enabled solutions through continuous innovation. Our sustainable business approach enables us to remain agile and efficient to address the changing market and customer behavior. Our association with Pi ventures is most opportune as we strongly believe in the digital possibilities where we ourselves are the biggest consumer of tech. We are excited to partner with Pi ventures and their portfolio companies and to leverage our mutual capabilities to contribute actively in the digital evolution” – said Hari Subramanian, Managing Director, Colruyt Group India & Partner, Korys Investments- India.   

Colruyt Group India is the extended IT arm of the Group. As a technology enabler for the Group IT, the Indian operations caters to the diverse needs from IT Architecture to Software and System Engineering. Located in Hyderabad, the facility houses more than 650 employees equipped with diverse skills in Data Analytics, IT operations, RPA, Java Enterprise Solutions among many others. The in-house team of technical architects, solution analysts and engineers are set up as global teams that work on maintaining the existing IT landscape and building solutions on emerging technologies.

“We are delighted to have the support from Colruyt. The confidence in our team and our investment strategy reinforces our commitment to support talented entrepreneurs who are creating disruptive products that solve fundamental real-world problems with innovative technology backed solutions. With the association with Colruyt, we are excited about unlocking opportunities in Europe for our portfolio companies" said Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures.

Established in 2016 by Manish Singhal, pi Ventures closed its Fund I of ₹225 Cr (USD 30 Mn) in 2018. The first fund exceeded its target and was oversubscribed and has backed 15 deep tech startups including Niramai, Pixis, Wysa, Agnikul, Locus to name a few. The second fund was launched in March 2021 with a base target corpus of INR 675Cr (USD 90Mn) and including green shoe a target of INR 750Cr (USD 100 Mn).