We Founder Circle (WFC) has introduced two angel funds– $24 Mn angel fund ‘Invstt Trust’ and $30 Mn cross-border angel fund ‘We Founder Circle Global Angels Fund’. The firm is backed by a community of successful founders & strategic angels, we help raise seed funding of $100K-$150K to early-stage founders.
WFC’s Invest fund will have a green shoe option of $24 Mn while its cross-border angel fund will have a $30 Mn green shoe option. Both funds are sector-agnostic and have a commitment cycle of seven years.
The funds will invest between INR 2 Cr and INR 4 Cr in Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A-stage startups in the country.
Founded in 2020 by Gaurav Sanghavi, Neeraj Tyagi, Bhawna Bhatnagar, Deo Saurabh and Vikas Aggarwal, WFC has invested in more than 100 deals so far. It has backed more than 70 homegrown startups and has a wide network of 6500 investors across 40 countries.
Besides being entrepreneurs, both Tyagi and Sanghavi also act as angel investors and have backed various startups in their personal capacities. The former manages a portfolio of 40 startups while the latter manages a portfolio of 100+ startups that are mostly operated in Tier-I and Tier-II cities of India, shared by WFC in a virtual call.
What makes We Founder Circle (WFC) Unique?
- We Founder Circle Invstt Trust fund will have a green shoe option of $24 Mn while its cross-border angel fund will have a $30 Mn green shoe option
- The funds will invest between INR 2 Cr and INR 4 Cr in Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A-stage startups in the country
- Both funds are sector-agnostic and have a commitment cycle of seven years
According to the company it provides multi-domain expertise through a diversified network of distinguished Businessmen, Professionals & HNIs spanning across various geographies, industries and areas of expertise, hence higher chances of success is associated with WFC community.
WFC mainly backs seed-stage, Series A and Series B-stage startups. It has exited seven startups including OBEN, Hesa, YPay, Zypp Electric, Kazam and Vidyakul, among others to date.
Tyagi mentions that Zypp and BluSmart currently have the soonicorn status and hold the potential to become unicorns in coming years.
The investment firm has partnered with Amazon in its ‘Dcrypt’ campaign. As part of the campaign, the ecommerce giant finds the best deals and opportunities in the crypto sector.
Tyagi believes Web3, crypto and NFT are considered as the best asset classes in India.
“We realised that we need to align with other partners before entering into these sectors. For this, we have partnered with Amazon, Cisco and Microsoft,” he added.
He goes on to state that We Founder Circle will be focusing on opportunistic sectors such as EV, agritech, fintech and environmental, social, and governance (ESG).
According the investment firm In the first half of calendar year 2022, Indian startups cumulatively raised $19 Bn across 900 funding deals. The funds raised by Indian startups in H1 CY22 were almost double than the fund raise of $10 Bn during the same period last year.
A Digital-First, community-based investment platform, the community members of WFC are a mix of corporate executives, founders and Investors who have been part of the startup ecosystem here and globally.
The firm vision is to build a global network of founders & strategic investors offering Funding, Business & Community.
We Founder Circle is a global community of successful founders & strategic angels, who want to actively collaborate with early stage startups to help them grow fast by offering seed funding, business development and global networking.
The entire approach is digital first that enables angels across the globe, invest & partner with startups.
WFC already has 20 global partners including VC funds, accelerators & founder communities from India, US, China, Singapore & European regions. The team behind the initiative has invested in more than 60 startups till date & has created startup communities in India, China, Singapore & Dubai.
