WEH Ventures marks first close of Rs 250 Cr Fund III
The Fund III of WEH Ventures aims to invest in 20-25 Indian startups cutting across sectors.
WEH Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm has announced the first close of Fund III with a target corpus Rs 250 crore. Though it did not disclose the quantum of funds raised in the first close.
A statement from WEH Ventures said the first close has attracted participation from a mix of family offices, exited founders and senior corporate and technology executives. Early backers include Play Capital, a Nordic Fund of Fund (FoF); family offices such as Eraya, Twin & Bull Investments and Heritage Investments; exited founders from companies including Oziva and GS Labs; senior executives and CEOs from companies such as Thermax, Haleon, Lenovo and PNB MetLife; as well as senior Silicon Valley executives associated with companies including Arlo and Intuitive Surgical.
The fund III aims to invest in 20-25 early stage Indian startups across a broad set of sectors including advanced manufacturing, agriculture, energy transition, artificial intelligence and healthcare, alongside consumer and fintech.
WEH Ventures said it has already begun deploying capital from Fund III and has committed to eight investments across advanced agriculture, robotics, healthcare diagnostics, retail and edtech.
WEH Ventures General Partner Deepak Gupta said, “Fund III builds on the strategy we have followed over the years: backing strong founders early when they are solving compelling problems and helping them build enduring businesses. What is changing is the breadth of opportunities we are seeing in the market. Fund III allows us to participate in this broader opportunity while staying disciplined about the stage and kind of founders we want to back.”
This VC firm claimed that it has shown strong performance since its Fund I in 2017 and Fund II launched in 2020. Fund I has returned material capital (1.4x), and Fund 2 has already returned capital with one exit and is tracking to well above top-quartile performance. It has invested in 30 startups till now.
Among the portfolio of startups in WEH Ventures’ include the likes of Smallcase, Jar, Pratilipi, Animall, MasterChow, AppsforBharat, Unbox Robotics and Mitigata.