WFC Launches $24 Mn Angel & $30 Mn Cross-Border Fund

Investment firm We Founder Circle (WFC) has today launched two angel funds– $24 Mn angel fund ‘Invstt Trust’ and $30 Mn cross-border angel fund ‘We Founder Circle Global Angels Fund’. 

WFC’s Invstt 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. 

Talking about portfolio startups, Tyagi said that Zypp and BluSmart currently have the soonicorn status and hold the potential to become unicorns in coming years. 

WFC mainly backs seed-stage, Series A and Series B-stage startups. It has exited seven startups including Geekster, Hesa, YPay, Zypp Electric, Kazam and Vidyakul, among others to date. 

WFC further said it 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. 

WFC On Sectors & Angel Investments

Talking about different sectors,Tyagi shared that Web3, crypto and NFT are considered as 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 stated that WFC will be focusing on opportunistic sectors such as EV, agritech, fintech and environmental, social, and governance (ESG).

While sharing tips for first-time angel investors, Sanghavi told Inc42 that angel investors should follow 3Ps–promote, product and plan. In the beginning, investors should write small cheques, should not liquidate in the first three years and build an apt portfolio. 

“First-time investors need to observe how well startup founders know the problem and how they are solving it. They should also assess ecosystems that startup founders are focusing on and also, learn the market size of that particular sector,” Sanghvi added. 

WFC’s funds have been launched at a time when Indian startups are witnessing a slowdown amid the ongoing funding crunch. To support the startup ecosystem, a series of funds have been launched recently. 

Blume Ventures’ $250 Mn fund, AUM Ventures’ maiden VC fund,  8i Ventures’ $50 Mn fund and SphitiCap’s $500 Mn fund are some of the funds that have either been introduced or closed this year.