New Delhi, Feb. 12 -- Healthcare-focused venture capital firm W Health Ventures has marked the first close of its second fund, months after unveiling the vehicle, and has set the timeline to wrap up the fundraising exercise.
With the second fund, W Health is doubling down on its "found and fund" strategy and deploying capital across India's single-specialty care and AI-enabled solutions for the US.
The VC firm, which has offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Boston, said it has collected Rs 550 crore ($60 million) at the initial close of the fund to invest across the US-India corridor. The firm expects to make the final close of the fund in the next six to 12 weeks, a top executive told VCCircle.
"We're targeting a Rs 630-crore fund with a greenshoe option to go a little bit over that and we're almost fully subscribed-[we are] 90% there," Pankaj Jethwani, managing partner at W Health Ventures, told VCCircle. "Let's say Q1 or early Q2 is when we expect to do a final close."
The VC firm rolled out the second fund in July last year with a target corpus of $70 million and greenshoe option of $30 million.
W Health Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in healthcare companies. So far, the VC firm has invested in 12 companies in India and the US, including Wysa, BeatO, Mylo, Reveal, and BabyMD.
It partners with its venture studio 2070 Health to build healthcare companies including Nivaan Care from scratch. Last year, it deployed capital in a joint venture set up along with Indian hospital network Narayana Health and 2070 Health to launch Everhope Oncology, which raised $10 million in seed funding.
With regards to its "found and fund" strategy, Jethwani said the VC firm has built intellectual properties (IPs), talent ecosystems and network around the single specialty healthcare providers, which will continue to be the focus in the second fund as well.
"We are targeting spaces like elderly care, longevity, and oncology. Elderly care has a whole bunch of affiliated associated conditions underlying it.. That is a high priority focus area for us right now," he added.
Over the next three years, it will build and scale a portfolio of eight to 10 companies. Roughly two-thirds of the capital would go towards India ventures and the remainder in the US, Jethwani said, though the percentage split could vary. With the second fund, W Health plans to invest Rs 30-50 crore in each incubation.
Jethwani said the investor base of the fund includes family offices, institutions and corporates based in the US and India. The limited partner base is "heavily skewed" towards US-based investors with "a decent chunk from India as well", he said.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.