We Founder Circle (WFC), a founders-led early stage start-up investment platform that was born in the midst of the pandemic, plans to invest $50,000 - $150,000 in 40 start-ups for equity stakes upwards of 5 per cent in FY 2022.
WFC has already facilitated funds worth $1.5 million across 16 start-ups by the end of March 2021 including CouchFashion, Geekster, Karnival, Avni, Humus, Stylework and Vidyakul.
Going beyond funding
Established in August 2020, WFC is a global community of over 1,500 founders and strategic angels from India and 15 countries that have come together to encourage the start-up industry. WFC provides seed funding, business development, and global networking opportunities to start-ups as it believes early-stage start-ups need a lot beyond just financial support to become scalable and stable.
“Being an early stage investor in over 25 start-ups in the last five years, I understand that budding start-ups need our support now more than ever. The pandemic has raised the very question of survival for many, including early stage start-ups. In such a scenario, only a founder can understand the daily challenges that another start-up founder goes through. Given this very reason, we have been able to connect well known founders including - Ashutosh of Beardo, Ankit Mehrotra of Dine Out, Akash of Zypp Electric, Kushang of SupplyNote, Sujata ex-co-founder of SuperButtom, Apaksh of One Impression among others, who have angel invested and mentored start-ups in this stage, through the WFC platform,” Neeraj Tyagi- co-founder and CEO, We Founder Circle told BusinessLine.
In the current April – June quarter of FY 2022, WFC aims to facilitate around $1 million worth of funds for 10 start-ups with a focus on edtech, foodtech, fintech and healthtech sectors. “We are planning to launch a global accelerator programme too, in order to catalyse the growth of the domain” said Tyagi.