The Venturesome Catalyst The firm works with the founding teams on a deep involvement strategy and subject-matter experts as well as strategizes for product market fit: Pranav Pai, 3one4 Capital

By Saptak Bardhan

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3one4 Capital
Pranav Pai, Founding Partner, 3one4 Capital

Pranav Pai started 3one4 Capital at a time when the Indian Venture Capital Industry was looking outwards, particularly the United States as a possible investment opportunity and were investing in mainly wallet companies or e-commerce or food delivery companies. Pranav thought this theme was becoming too predictable and too mainstream. Launching his first fund, he was bullish about pre-empting the trend and investing in companies which would be of extremely high value and a clear product market fit. According to Pranav, a lot of 3one4's best companies came from the mindset of pre-empting the mainstream. Not only that, 3one4 also flipped the entire composition of round formation by diving into market research to learn about trends, model challenges and the opportunities in the country. Pranav took this step thinking of the future and made investments that provided a competitive edge to the firm and the companies. According to Pranav, the firm works in select market categories and in the intersection of adjacencies that are large, growing, and ready for unique products and services. The themes pursued are SaaS and Enterprise Automation, Direct-to-Consumer products and services, Digital Media, FinTech, and Deep Technology, with a focus on areas such as machine-driven actionable intelligence services for the enterprise, ambient intelligence technologies, EdTech, logistics and distribution, consumer products and services, and health." 3one4 Capital has specialized in utilizing its deep access to strategic corporations and investors as well as its grounds-up proprietary sourcing engine to discover the next set of generational companies from the early stage." The firm works with the founding teams on a deep involvement strategy and subject-matter experts as well as strategizes for productmarket fit."

Having made over 70 investments across the early stage vertical, they have completed over 20 investments in their fifth fund. According to Pranav, there were three leading indicators that tech would prevail and emerge as a winner after the pandemic was over as companies being built for a very long period of time went for IPO which portrayed India as an emerging leader in the space. The accessibility of capital not only helped the companies going for IPO but also the companies who were in early-stage and with the domain expertise and depth growing faster than ever in 2021, 3one4 saw a record number of repeat operators who are building new ideas. "2021 will be the most active year in terms of investments. We've had larger amounts of global capital looking for stellar companies to invest in." The firm will be looking forward to cover sectors like sectors such as digital health, machine-driven intelligent services, electric vehicle mobility, edtech, agritech, logistics and distribution, etc in their current fund.

Saptak Bardhan

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Former Trainee Writer
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