Fireside’s 2026 Vision: Mapping The Course Of Consumer Retail, D2C Ecosystem |
With its fourth fund closed last week, Fireside Ventures is looking at a new landscape of consumer brands and retail in India.
The INR 2,265 Cr (around $253 Mn) fund IV will look to invest in 30-35 consumer brands — a tried and tested thesis that has resulted in exits over the past few years.
For the firm’s founders Kanwaljit Singh and Kannan Sitaram this fund is not only a testament to Fireside’s success so far but also a sign of trust in India’s growing consumption economy.
Consumption patterns, audiences, and channels are rapidly evolving across India, and Fireside is keenly eyeing the next phase of growth here.
Founded in 2017, the VC firm has backed 60 consumer brands with a combined AUM of INR 5,300 Cr. After raising a $225 Mn Fund III in 2023 and a $118 Mn Fund II in 2021 – supporting brands like The Sleep Company, Slurrp Farm, Sweet Karam Coffee and The Good Bug – Fireside is gearing up for the next phase of India’s consumption story, with a sharper focus on ESG and AI-driven consumer innovations.
In a recently published report, the VC firm said, “At Fireside, we see India’s 2030 consumer as a mosaic of identities: experimental, aspirational, proudly regional, and digitally native.”
On the back of this new focus and a major stress on the environmental issues, Inc42 spoke to Fireside managing partner Singh and partner Sitaram to get an understanding of how this consumption drive is evolving.
While the broader thesis remains the same, there are some finer nuances in how Fireside is approaching consumer brand-building for a new India.
One of the biggest focus areas for the fund is sports, fitness, wellness and lifestyle, which shows in its recent investments. Can we expect the D2C and retail ecosystem to move this way in 2026?
Here are the edited excerpts
Inc42: Tell us about your latest investment in SFL (Sports For Life). Isn’t it different from the kind of investments Fireside has done so far? Does it open up a new sector for you altogether?
Kannan Sitaram: It is different indeed! So, we did a whole piece of research on what’s happening in consumption in new India. One of the things that stood out is that the sport and fitness space is booming. The trend is new but confirmed. And we think that a lot of discretionary spending has started happening there — whether it’s school kids or the adults, the number of Indians who are in a sport or go to the gym is increasing. It’s very different from what it was 10 years ago. So, when we saw that SFL was trying to organise this area, it became an area of interest for us.
We are keeping an eye. Going forward, if there are........