Home care, arts & craft on Pidilite arm’s radar

Pidilite Ventures is looking to invest in startups that are operating in the company’s core and adjacent businesses. (Image/Pidilite)

Pidilite Ventures is looking to invest in startups that are operating in the company’s core and adjacent businesses such as home care and maintenance, contractor as a customer, home improvement and renovation, arts and craft and green building materials.

“Over the last five years, we have invested about Rs 300 crore in nine companies, with an average cheque size of Rs 5 crore-20 crore. In this financial year, we have made one new investment and about two-three follow-on rounds,” Apurva Parekh, director at Pidilite Ventures, told FE. The company’s portfolio includes startups such as Pepperfry, LivSpace, HomeLane, BuildNext and Finemake, as per Tracxn data.

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Recently, it invested Rs 20 crore in toy maker Imagimake that is looking to scale production and launch new range of toys. The company has partnered with 100X. VC, which helps with identifying potential investments. While the company does not have a predefined corpus for investment, it expects to continue investing in startups in allied sectors this year, and across stages.

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“It allows us to keep an eye on the business models that are evolving in our space or how innovation is happening in this space and sometimes we also work closely with them, where they may use our products or we might use theirs,” Parekh said.

Pidilite’s product categories include adhesives, construction chemicals and industrial resins. In its latest Q3 results, the company posted a 66% year-on-year jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs 511 crore. Consolidated revenue from operations rose 4.4% to Rs 3,130 crore in the December quarter.