The United Kingdom (UK)- based development financial institution and impact investor British International Investment (BII) raised $8 million for Bengaluru-based pi Ventures. The company is known for backing multiple deep tech start-ups in India. 

After closing the first round of the fund-II in January, this year at Rs 300 crore, pi Ventures is willing to make the final close within the first quarter of the Financial Year (FY) 2023 at a range of Rs 565-750 crore, the company claimed in a statement.

For the first round, pi Ventures bagged investments from entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) across the globe. The fund is currently backed by Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF (NIDIA), Accel, and multiple other investors like Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Varun Alagh (Mamaearth co-founder), Anupam Mittal ( People Group Founder), Deep Kalra (MakeMyTrip). Additionally, senior leaders from IBM, Facebook, and Google have also been backing the fund. 

The second fund will be utilised to invest in start-ups working to provide deep tech solutions in segments like blockchains, spacetech, biotech, artificial food, and material science. 

“In Fund-II, we have built our thesis, which is quite broad in deep tech. We are now also looking at blockchain infrastructure use cases, material science-driven physical innovation, space-tech, artificial food, nanotech, and biotech. It is a fairly broad spectrum now.”

pi Ventures has already started investing with the second fund. Manish Singhal, one of the founding partners of the company told the Economic Times, that the company has currently made five investments with this second fund. 

Currently, the Bengaluru-based firm is backing deep tech organisations like Agnikul, Locus, Niramai, Pyxis, and Wysa with its first fund.