Early-stage venture capital firm 3one4 Capital on October 5 said the firm has appointed its Founding Partner and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Siddarth Pai as its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Officer. According to the firm, Pai is the Indian venture capital industry’s first and the youngest ESG officer.
Under the additional responsibility of ESG officer, he will also lead the firm’s intentional work in bringing principles of ESG into its investment and portfolio management routines, the fund added in a statement.
This includes aligning the firm’s framework for ESG practices with its existing processes and standards, sharing ESG objectives, policies and practices with the firm’s portfolio companies, and actively participating in the development of ESG in the Indian ecosystem.
Speaking on the new role, Pai said, “In this dual role of ESG officer and CFO, I believe I can better implement sustainable investing across the organisation due to the quantitative and qualitative impact it has on operations. The focus will be on raising awareness and embedding it in the chain of commerce to benefit all stakeholders - internal, external and regulatory.”
“The value of ESG transcends the balance sheet in the long term, but it's important to translate the short to midterm impact on the bottom line to create more awareness and add a competitive edge. Hopefully, in time, the role of the ESG officer must become as critical as any other CXO and finance,” he added.
The Bengaluru-based firm is the first approved venture capital signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) from India. The PRI is a United Nations-supported international network of investors working to implement sustainable investment by incorporating ESG principles.
Pranav Pai, Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer, said, “With Siddarth as our ESG Officer, the firm will aim to fuse the drive for performance and the possibility of positive transformation into a collaborative framework that is tangible and practical for the best founding teams. We will continue to partner with startups that today have the unique opportunity to truly do good while creating value."
3one4 Capital’s portfolio includes investments in sectors like SaaS and Enterprise Automation, Direct to Consumer products and services, Fintech, Digital Media, and Deep Tech. Within these sectors, the funds are actively investing in areas such as health-tech, edtech, food and agri-tech, EV and energy systems, logistics and distribution, semiconductor design, mobility, Indic language-focused applications, and more.
3one4 Capital was founded by Pranav Pai and Siddharth Pai and currently oversees a corpus of over $240 million and a portfolio of over 70 investments across the early stage. Some companies in its portfolio include Licious, Open, DarwinBox, Jupiter, Betterplace, Koo, Dozee, Breathe Well-Being, among others.
The firm has launched a total of five funds since its inception in 2015 and its fifth fund focuses on ticket sizes in the range of $ 500,000 to $4 million for entries.
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