pi & Portfolio in the News
Fast Charging EV batteries
Clean Electric announces $6 million Series A investment co-led by pi Ventures, Info Edge Ventures and Kalaari Capital.
AI led marketing platform
Pixis raised $85 million in a Series C1 round led by Touring Capital with participation from Grupo Carso, General Atlantic, Celesta Capital, and Chiratae Ventures.
Space Launch Vehicle
Space-tech startup Agnikul Cosmos has raised $26.7 million from investors like deep tech-focused venture capital firm Celesta Capital and investment firm Rocketship among others.
Alternative Milk Proteins
Alternative protein startup, Zero Cow Factory has raised $4M in seed funding co-led by pi Ventures along with participation from other notable funds.
Decentralized Security Provider
Decentralized security provider, Silence Laboratories has raised $1.7M in seed funding led by pi Ventures along with participation from web3 centric funds such as imToken ventures and prominent angels.
3D Reconstruction Platform
Photogrammetry startup, Preimage, has raised $1.7m in seed funding led by pi Ventures along with participation from Better Capital, Java Capital, and global angel investors.
Fully Autonmous Delivery Robots
Robotics startup, Ottonomy, has raised $3.3m in seed funding led by pi Ventures along with participation from other global investors like Connetic Ventures and Branded Hospitality Ventures.
AI for Mental Health
Mental health startup, Wysa, has raised $20m in Series B funding from HealthQuad, with participation from British International Investment.
Strong participation from existing and new LPs
Fund II will look at companies focused on disruptive AI and other forms of Deep Tech across sectors including but not limited to Blockchain, Spacetech, Biotech, Material Science, etc. Through a corpus that is 3x as large as Fund I, we will aim to go deeper in portfolio winners in subsequent rounds.
AI for Marketing Automation
Pixis is a no code AI platform for fully automated creative generation and targeted marketing campaigns to achieve significant marketing RoI for its customers currently across India, NA, and EU.
AI for Antibody Discovery & Screening
immunitoAI is developing an AI-powered platform for antibody discovery and screening. The platform screens and ranks the best antibody candidates for a given target/antigen. With this technology, the discovery process can be made 2x more efficient while improving the success rate.
Ai Palette predicts trends for F&B companies
Ai Palette's Foresight Engine uses sophisticated NLP models and image recognition trained on F&B datasets to deliver significant product innovation time and cost savings for clients.
Insane AI is an AI powered Fitness app
Insane AI is an AI powered fitness app which leverages computer vision on the mobile phone to create personalized workouts at home. It makes workouts fun and engaging using immersive gamification routines.
Already started investing out of the second fund
pi Ventures will continue to back companies, across a wide range of sectors, that solve large global problems on the back of technology.
Early-stage venture capital fund that backs AI and deep tech startups, has received approval from markets regulator to raise a $100m venture fund
"I firmly believe that in the next 10-15 years, India can become a DeepTech nation and we at pi will do our best to put India on the DeepTech innovation map of the world" - says Manish Singhal
LimeChat is an AI chatbot for Commerce
LimeChat was founded in 2020 amid a pandemic-induced surge in adoption of e-commerce in India. The chatbot offers conversational experiences to customers on platforms including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Wysa is an AI based mental wellness startup
Google, via its assistant investment program, has invested an undisclosed amount in Wysa, the AI-based Indian mental health startup, marking the fund’s first investment in Asia.
The Indian space startup has successfully fired its higher stage semi-cryogenic rocket engine called Agnilet
The rocket engine is capable of carrying up to 100 kilos to low earth orbit (LEO), which is around 700 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.
Says Manish Singhal in a candid interview with ET
In an e-mail interview Manish Singhal, founding partner of pi Ventures, discusses the funds priorities, why it's looking at newer areas like space tech, exits and other aspects.
With the Covid tailwinds, is AI at its second inflection point
In the past six months, the world as we know it has been upended. While the jury is out on how it the Covid-19 pandemic will end and what aspects of life will change forever, there are a few things we know for certain that are going to be different in the new world we are heading into.
pi Ventures achieves final close at 225 CR INR
CDC, IFC, SIDBI, Sunil Kant Munjal, EDF among major contributors
Artificial intelligence and IoT-focused early stage venture fund pi Ventures has achieved the final close of its INR 195CR fund at INR 225Cr.
AI is becoming the big disruptive force across industries
In mid-2016, Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, both entrepreneurs in previous avatars, set up pi Ventures to invest in early-stage startups that use Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to solve problems across a range of sectors.
Deep learning to transform pathology
Today SigTuple, which uses computer vision and artificial intelligence for diagnosis, announced series A funding of US$5.8 million. This is the largest investment in a healthcare AI startup out of India. It will help SigTuple scale up and go global.
Accel Partners led the round. Other investors include IDG Ventures India, pi Ventures, Axilor Ventures, and Endiya Partners. Solid backing for the Bangalore-based startup from marquee investors signals the arrival of Indian AI on the world stage.
Deep learnings for AI startups
Artificial intelligence is getting a lot of attention these days from startups and investors alike. Since pi Ventures is a fund focused on supporting applied AI companies, we meet quite a few entrepreneurs every week who are building companies in the field. Interacting with these startups has been a very enlightening journey for us. Here are some lessons which may be useful for folks wanting to venture out into AI.
