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3ONE4 Capital
Pranav Pai and Siddarth Pai founded 3ONE4 Capital in 2015, an early-stage Indian venture firm that evolved from the Manipal Group family office.
3ONE4 Capital
3ONE4 Capital began as the investment vehicle for the Pai family, whose wealth traces to the founding and leadership of Manipal Group, a diversified Indian conglomerate with interests in healthcare, education, and manufacturing. The firm transitioned to venture capital in 2015, actively investing from pre-seed through Series A with select follow-on reserves. Pranav Pai, an engineer by training with degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, leads investment strategy alongside his brother Siddarth, a venture investor and former operating executive. The firm deploys across seven major sectors: enterprise software, fintech, digital health, AI/ML, mobility and transportation, digital media, and agri-tech. Portfolio companies include Licious, the D2C meat and seafood brand, and Open, a neobanking platform for SMEs. The firm also runs Rise, a seed-stage program that backs pre-revenue founders with capital and operating support, and maintains a dedicated public markets fund for crossover positions. Geographic focus centers on Indian-headquartered companies, with investments spanning Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, and Chennai. 3ONE4 operates with a hybrid structure, combining a traditional venture fund for external limited partners with discretionary capital from the founding family. Fund IV closed in 2022, and the firm has since deepened its deployment into climate-adjacent sectors including EV infrastructure. In early 2024, the firm promoted Anurag Ramdasan to Partner, signaling a maturing internal leadership pipeline. A structural differentiator is the firm's deliberate layering of family-office patience with institutional venture velocity. Unlike pure institutional funds, 3ONE4 can hold positions longer without artificial fund-life pressure, and unlike a single-family office, it actively competes for deal allocation alongside top-tier venture firms. This architecture allows it to bridge the gap between concessionary and market-rate capital for the Indian startup ecosystem.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2015
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Asia
Country
India
City
Bangalore
Corporate office
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Principals
Pranav Pai
Founding Partner
Siddarth Pai
Founding Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What is the relationship between 3ONE4 Capital and the Manipal Group?
3ONE4 Capital was initially seeded by the Pai family, whose wealth originates from the Manipal Group — a diversified Indian conglomerate in healthcare, education, and manufacturing. The firm now operates independently as a venture capital manager, but the family remains closely involved and contributes discretionary co-investment capital alongside fund commitments.
How does 3ONE4 source proprietary deal flow in India's competitive early-stage market?
Sourcing combines the Pai family's multi-decade operational network in Indian industry with a structured university outreach program across the IITs, IIMs, and tier-1 engineering colleges. The firm also runs the Rise seed program, which provides capital and mentorship to pre-revenue founding teams, creating a pipeline often inaccessible to pure institutional investors.
Does 3ONE4 participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?
3ONE4 pursues direct equity investments almost exclusively, from pre-seed through Series A, with selective follow-on reserves. The firm does not make fund-of-fund commitments. It maintains a separate public markets vehicle for crossover opportunities, but this represents a small portion of total deployment.
What investment stages does 3ONE4 typically target?
The firm focuses on pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds. Its Rise program specifically targets pre-revenue companies with initial checks as low as $100,000 to $500,000. Main fund investments typically range from $1 million to $5 million at entry, with reserves for pro-rata follow-ons in subsequent rounds.
Who runs investment decisions at 3ONE4?
Pranav Pai leads the investment committee as Managing Partner. Siddarth Pai co-manages portfolio strategy and firm operations. As of early 2024, Anurag Ramdasan joined the partnership as the first non-family Partner, signaling an evolution toward a more institutionalized decision-making structure.
Which sectors does 3ONE4 explicitly avoid?
The firm publicly does not invest in defense tech, gambling, adult content, tobacco, or weapons manufacturing. Within its active sectors, it has historically passed on deep biotech and hardware-heavy industrials, preferring asset-light digital business models where its operational expertise applies most directly.
Is 3ONE4 structured as a single family office or does it operate more like a venture firm?
It operates as a hybrid: a registered venture capital firm managing external LP capital alongside discretionary family co-investment. The firm is SEBI-registered as an Alternative Investment Fund in India and competes directly for allocations with institutional venture firms, but retains family-office flexibility in holding periods and reserve allocation.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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