WEH Ventures Announces First Close Of ₹250 Cr Fund III

Seed-stage focused venture capital firm WEH Ventures announced the first close of its third fund  (Fund III) at an undisclosed amount.

Limited partners for the fund include  Nordic fund-of-funds Play Capital, family offices such as Eraya, Twin & Bull Investments and Heritage Investments, as well as founders and executives associated with companies including Oziva, GS Labs, Thermax, Haleon, Lenovo and PNB MetLife.

The firm is targeting a total corpus of ₹250 Cr for the fund and expects to completely close it by mid-2027. 

The VC would look to deploy the capital across 20–25 seed stage startups operating across segments like advanced manufacturing, agriculture, energy transition, AI, healthcare, consumer and fintech.

The firm claims to have already started deploying capital from Fund III, committing eight investments across startups working in advanced agriculture, robotics, healthcare diagnostics, retail and edtech. 

Some of the investments disclosed so far include advanced horticulture startup Fragaria, which raised $2 Mn in a seed round in October 2025, along with elder-healthcare startup Praan Health, and sports retailer PlayBlue, which raised $2.7 Mn in July. 

One of the fund’s portfolio startups has also gone on to raise a subsequent round at a higher valuation, WEH Ventures said. 

WEH Ventures’ Track Record 

WEH Ventures launched its first fund in 2017, followed by its flagship Fund II in 2020. The VC said Fund I has returned 1.4X the capital invested, while Fund II has already returned capital through one exit and is tracking above top-quartile performance. The firm claims to have delivered a 29% IRR to investors in Fund II.

Since 2017, WEH Ventures has invested in more than 30 companies, including Smallcase, Jar, Pratilipi, Animall, MasterChow, AppsForBharat, Unbox Robotics and Mitigata.

The firm claims that its portfolio companies, which it backs at the pre-seed and seed stages, have cumulatively raised $400 Mn. It said 75% of its portfolio startups have gone on to raise follow-on cheques from other VC firms.

The VC has continued to back several of its portfolio companies in subsequent rounds. Mitigata recently closed its Series B round at $15 Mn, with WEH Ventures returning as an investor.

WEH Ventures also exited smallcase in July 2025, generating a 38% IRR after investing ₹5 Cr across the fintech startup’s funding rounds. The VC first backed smallcase through its ₹20 Cr Fund I in 2018 and continued investing through its Series C.

“Alongside consumer and fintech, we are seeing strong entrepreneurial activity across advanced manufacturing, agriculture, energy transition, AI and healthcare. Fund III allows us to participate in this broader opportunity while staying disciplined about the stage and kind of founders we want to back,” WEH Ventures general partner Deepak Gupta said.

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