New Delhi, Aug. 18 -- Neeraj Tyagi, the co-founder of investment platform We Founder Circle and early-stage venture capital fund Avinya Ventures, died of cardiac arrest early in the morning on Sunday.
He had no prior history of cardiac issues and some industry executives say that he was "extremely fit". He breathed his last at St. John's Hospital in Bengaluru and is survived by his wife and son.
"He had some mild pain yesterday (Saturday) afternoon which he consulted at Manipal, Indiranagar (it seemed a minor pain so Neeraj was back home in a few hours)," wrote Devendra Agrawal, founder of Dexter Capital and Dexter Ventures, on his social-media page.
"The pain triggered once again around 10/10:30 PM to which he was taken to Manipal again and later referred to St. Johns Hospital where he breathed his last," Agrawal added.
Tyagi, who was the CEO of the angel investing platform, joins a list of founders who met an untimely death in the recent past. In May, digital lending startup Loantap co-founder Vikas Kumar died in an accident in Bengaluru. Earlier this year, Amit Banerji founder of managed workspace provider TableSpace lost his life to a heart attack. In December, Epigamia co-founder Rohan Mirchandani also died of heart attack.
Tyagi founded We Founder Circle along with Gaurav Singhvi, Bhawna Bhatnagar, Saurabh Deo, Pankaj Kumar, and Vikas Aggarwal. The platform has invested in more than 150 startups across India, the US, Singapore, and Dubai, backing companies such as Zypp Electric, Rooster, Oben Electric, Garuda Aerospace and others.
He also co-founded Avinya Ventures, launched last year, which is raising its maiden venture capital fund of Rs 250 crore target corpus to bet on startups from seed to Series C stage. Prior to launching the fund, Tyagi has mentored and backed over 60 startups as an angel investor including BluSmart, Rooter, Zypp Electric, KoinX, and Anveshan.
Founders and investors shared their condolences and expressed grief on the demise.
"Hard to believe-we spoke just days ago, and I still remember him saying 'life is too fragile.' He was full of energy, excitement, and vision for the future," Ritesh Jain, a startup investor and advisor, wrote on LinkedIn. "Losing Neeraj is a profound loss to all of us who built, believed, and thrived in this ecosystem together. His legacy will live on in every startup he touched," wrote Vijay Rathore, co-founder and CEO, Soonicorn Ventures.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.