We Founder Circle: founders backing founders, from Mumbai to 40 countries

We Founder Circle started in October 2020 in Mumbai with a simple idea: founders backing founders. Six years on it is one of India's largest angel-investor networks - a digital-first community where the angels are entrepreneurs who have built companies themselves - and it has added two regulated angel funds, Invstt Trust and the We Founder Circle Global Angels Fund, on top of the community engine.

Investment thesis

The circle's vision is to build "a global network of founders & strategic investors offering Funding, Business & Community". The model deliberately goes beyond capital: startups get business development support, peer-to-peer learning and global networking. It is sector-agnostic, but roughly 70% of its investments cluster around ESG/cleantech, healthcare and fintech themes; around 60% of its funded founders come from Tier-2/3/4 cities and 20-25% are women founders.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

In December 2022 the platform launched two funds at GIFT City. Invstt Trust, a SEBI-registered Angel Fund AIF, targets Rs 200 crore plus a Rs 200 crore green-shoe - up to Rs 400 crore for early-stage Indian startups. The We Founder Circle Global Angels Fund is a cross-border fund of $30 million plus a $30 million green-shoe, over a seven-year term extendable by two years. The funds write average tickets of Rs 3-4 crore into pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds. Separately, the community's own monthly selection seeds startups at around $100K-150K. By 2023 the network reported $30M+ invested across 207 deals in 162 startups, with 15+ startups going on to raise follow-on rounds.

Notable portfolio

The first eight deals (2020) included Anveshan, Belora Paris, YPayCard, Knocksense, Deciwood, Humus, Vidyakul and Couch Fashion. More recent seed deals include Mugafi, Pickkup and BlackCarrot, and in 2022 the circle led three agri-tech deals worth $2.5M.

People

The platform was co-founded by Gaurav VK Singhvi, the late Neeraj Tyagi (CEO and co-founder), Bhawna Bhatnagar, Deo Saurabh and Vikas Aggarwal. Singhvi is Managing Partner of the investment manager, We Founder Circle Angel Accelerator LLP, which manages both funds; Bhatnagar heads global partnerships and leads the accelerator programme.

Credits and perks

No formal credits or perks packages are publicly disclosed. The stated value-add is business development support, global networking, mentorship and access to global acceleration programmes.

How to engage

The community route is a rolling, monthly selection: "every month we choose the best ideas & teams through a careful community backed selection process & seed fund around $100K-150K", via wefoundercircle.com. Founders can also enter through Invstt.com, the network's angel-investing marketplace with 6,000+ investors, or its EvolveX global accelerator programme. The two funds invest in startups raising pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds across financial services, deep tech, fintech, EV, gaming, industrial tech, retail tech, edtech, supply chain, agritech, consumer/D2C, manufacturing, logistics and healthcare.