It’s been 10 years since Fireside Ventures was set up by Kanwaljit Singh, who had earlier cut his teeth on consumer marketing at HUL and Intel before plunging into investing with Carlye Group and Helion Venture Partners. The first fund of Fireside Ventures was $50 million, and the portfolio companies included boAt, Mamaearth, and Vahdam among others. The second fund was $118 million, with investments in 13 companies; the third fund was $250 million, with investments in 25 companies.

Three funds and several successful exits later, you ask Singh how Fireside’s journey of investing has evolved. How have the three funds differed from each other? Were there any differences in the investing strategies?

The response is in the affirmative. There have been significant changes — in ticket size, the type of companies that were funded, the scope of investment, the size of the team (there are five partners now), and so on. When they started, the modest ambition was to scale start-ups to ₹100 crore, but today that target has been upped to ₹1,000 crore.

But the most important evolution, says Singh, is that Fireside is now fully focused on being a responsible investor, educating portfolio companies on ‘environmental, social, and governance’ or ESG factors, sustainability and diversity. “We can’t solve the world’s problems, but we are trying very hard,” he says.

But let’s rewind to fund one.

“In 2015, my intuition was that there was an opportunity to build great new-age brands in India for the young millennial generation, using digital as the primary medium. So in fund one, the investment strategy was focused on digital-first brands that targeted urban millennial consumers,” he says.

‘Exitable’ factor

In the first fund, he adds, the investment would be in multi-stages. “We would write the first cheque of $1 million very early and then, once the company was a little more established, pump in, say, $3 million. We thought this way we could work with the companies throughout, helping shape their foundation and growth.”

The hypothesis, he elaborates, was that you could build a good business so that it becomes “exitable” either to large private equity players wanting to take it to the next level or to strategic acquirers. “That was the scope of our thinking,” says Singh.

Fireside’s investing model was to come in with a 10 per cent stake, and increase ownership gradually to 20 per cent over time. But, Singh explains, they found increasing ownership bit by bit was not that easy, as often the portfolio companies would have got investment from elsewhere too, or the valuation would have gone up.

Which is why, for its second fund, the venture capital firm raised $120 million (₹860 crore). Now, instead of 10 per cent at the start, they could come in at 20 per cent. There were other differences too. Instead of focusing purely on fast-moving consumer goods, Fireside expanded the scope to other categories — home, lifestyle, and fashion, among others. And since this fund happened during the early days of Covid, healthcare naturally also became a focus area. Thus investments happened in Fitterfly, Gynoveda and Wellbeing Nutrition.

“We also defined the consumer differently — looking beyond the young millennial, and at segments beyond digital and metros and urban areas,” says Singh. A classic case, he says, was The Sleep Company, which worked offline and online and had 150 stores spread across markets. Another example was Pilgrim, a beauty brand with sharp price points that had customers drawn from small-town India.

Around this time, says Singh, Fireside also began questioning whether it could become a more responsible investor. “So we got somebody on board as our ESG officer. We found founders who were very conscious about the environment, about diversity, sustainability, governance.”

But, he says, they also needed guidance. So Fireside got a full-time resource to work with companies on cutting down wasteful packaging and focusing on planet-friendly measures. “The good news is that many of our companies have been conscious about it from day one, like the tea company Vahdam. The company actually uses a percentage of its revenue to educate children of tea pickers,” says Singh.

Fireside also became a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (UNPRI). “We collect data from all our companies and publish reports,” he says, adding that they also do an impact report.

Small-town business

By Fund 3, Fireside was also embracing companies that were going far deeper into small-town India. “We started looking at Tier 3, Tier 4.” He points to Rozana as having an interesting model — creating a network of local individuals (such as anganwadi workers) who act as peer partners, delivering products and thus bridging the digital divide.

The consumer segment also expanded — Fireside began looking at companies catering to older women as a segment — for instance, products and services for issues like menopause, longevity. And way beyond its initial focus on digital-first companies. For instance, now Fireside has invested in a lab-grown diamond jewellery business called Aukera.

Fireside’s investment decision, Singh says, hinges a lot on the temperament of the founder. “If there is an average founder and a great business versus a good founder and average business, I would take the latter any day.”

And as Fireside evolved, Singh says, it has built multiple playbooks, on issues like how to work with Amazon, how to build a D2C business, how to design structures for growth, and so on. “It’s all open source and for the whole community, it’s not proprietary,” he adds .

“We have strengthened our conviction in the consumer opportunity. We have expanded our scope on all fronts, sectors, geography, and the whole idea of how large this business can become. Today we have one company (boAt) nearing ₹4,000 crore revenue. So we are saying to the founders, ‘Can you build at least a ₹1,000 crore business’.”

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Published on August 18, 2025