Fireside Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in homegrown consumer brands, has promoted three of its partners to co-founders.
The MamaEarth and YogaBar-backer elevated Kannan Sitaram, Vinay Singh, and Dipanjan Basu to co-founders, according to a release.
Collectively, the leadership team will usher in the next phase of growth and institutionalising the firm, the Bengaluru-based company further said.
Sitaram has more than 30 years of experience in the consumer sector and brings hands-on expertise in brand building, strategy, and business development. He already represents Fireside on the boards of several of its key investments including MamaEarth, Yogabar and Kapiva.
On the other hand, Singh has 15 years of domain expertise in consumer brands and technology industries, with expertise in areas like brand management, marketing and digital commerce. He is mentoring multiple portfolio companies including 91 Cycles, Pilgrim, Gynoveda etc.
Meanwhile, Basu, with more than 20 years of experience in investing, e-commerce, M&A, operations and finance, is on the board of companies like The Sleep Company, FS Life (formerly Fable Street) and Nat Habit.
Fireside Ventures was founded by Kanwaljit Singh in 2017. The VC firm, which is currently investing from Fund III, has AUM (assets under management) of Rs 3,000 crore ($395 million). It invests across consumer brands in sectors such as health and wellness, food and beverages, beauty and personal care, nutraceuticals, lifestyle and home products, etc.
“Fireside started as my personal vision to build an investment platform to support businesses that would disrupt the consumption landscape in India and globally. In this journey, all the partners contributed to make this vision a reality. In these five years, Fireside has built a credible reputation as a venture partner for entrepreneurs,” said Singh, who is the managing partner at Fireside Ventures.
To be sure, Fireside announced the close of its Fund III at $225 million in November 2022. The VC firm has invested in several D2C brands from its first two funds, including Mamaearth, boAt, Yogabar, Kapiva, 91 Cycles, Pilgrim, and The Sleep Company, among others.
The VC firm is currently looking to invest in platform brands, house of brands and global brands from India, Kanwaljit had told VCCircle in an interaction in October last year. “In platform brands, we are looking at companies focusing on a target solution like the area of Ayurveda, or demography like millennial women or children, a market like Bharat, or problems like preventative health. In the house of brands, we look to back those companies which are creating multiple sub-brands, each independent of the other, for a target set of audiences,” he said.
