WEH Ventures launches second early stage fund, targets INR 100 cr corpus

WEH Ventures, an early-stage fund, has announced the launch of its second fund of 100 Cr to continue supporting startups focusing on India-first problems. Fund II is a successor vehicle to WEH Ventures’ maiden early-stage fund launched in 2017 which has seen class-leading performance.

The fund is focused in its approach- it plans to invest in 18-20 startups at an early stage and would seek to back them over multiple follow-on rounds. WEH Ventures has been the first institutional investor in the majority of startups it has funded so far and it aims to maintain this approach.

Investments are well underway from the second fund- Unbox Robotics, a warehouse automation startup that uses plug & play swarm robotics to improve package sorting productivity is one of the first. Other investments from Fund II include a DTC Brand, a Community-first app for Bharat and a Gaming studio. The fund is sector agnostic and invests in solutions which are built ground up for solving problems primarily targeting the Indian economy.

Deepak Gupta, Founding Partner and Rohit Krishna, General Partner at WEH Ventures, in a joint statement said they are delighted to announce the launch of our second fund to further progress our journey to back missionary founders who are seeking to solve India-first problems at an early stage. “Spurred by the phenomenal success of our first fund, investors have reiterated their faith in us and we hope to continue to deliver compelling returns for them over a long period of time.”

Founded by Deepak Gupta and Rohit Krishna, WEH Ventures launched its first fund in 2017 which has performed phenomenally well. 90% of  companies raised follow-on capital led by Institutional investors, raising over 100x the capital investment by Fund I MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) is 4.2x with the average investment being about 2.5 years old. The Fund has signed up for its first exit and has line of sight to many more.

Some of the prominent companies from Fund I include smallcase, Pratilipi, Trell & Animall.

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The typical cheque size at WEH Ventures is upto INR 3 crores in the first round with substantial reserves to support the company in subsequent rounds. The second fund  has so far raised well over half its targeted corpus from CEOs and CXOs of major corporations in India and reputed family offices.