WEH Ventures

We've been part of this journey with Vidur Kataria Sidhanth Madan & Radhika Mittal since the pre-seed round in 2020 (also closer to heart since this was the first deal from Fund II). The investment thesis for us was always very simple - we tried cooking Chinese food at home during Covid, and all that was available was "Ching's Secret Schezwan Fried Rice Masala" & it was surprising that the second most enjoyed cuisine in the country is Chinese & we have just one brand that catered to this audience. Then we ended tasting the Masterchow sauces & we were just floored to see the difference in quality and taste. Having said that, the thesis that we believed in, didn't ring a bell with a lot of folks that we spoke to in the last 4 years. These were the top reasons why VCs hesitated -> 1) Market size is not large enough - Our belief was that the market appeared to be small, because the only brand available thus far was Ching's. Then Ching's got sold to Tata for ~5500cr, then noone questioned the market size any more. 2) Products are too expensive - Their sauces which was the first category they got into - was priced at ~Rs.240. Lot of people thought that this was expensive for India. But that was just the first category, after that in just last 2 years the founders have innovated on the product (Cup Noodles, Ramen, Chilli oil) and made products cheaper (Masterchow Staples, Chowmein, Schezwan). But I'm glad we got some believers along the way in the form of Anicut Capital LLP & Surge. And now, Tanglin Venture Partners. The founders continue to surprise everyone & I believe they'll do so in the future as well! #startup #funding #fmcg https://lnkd.in/g2wdAvmx

It was that time of the year again. We recently hosted WEH Ventures' 6th annual meeting in Mumbai. Its a time for us to share with our LPs and stakeholders on our progress, ideas, shortcomings, future plans and give them an opportunity to hear directly from our incredible founders. It was an electric atmosphere in a packed house- no one left their seats for four hours... Very gratifying to see how far we have come, and for the trust that is reposed in us. Great show by our compact Team WEH Gautam Ravi Ritik Rustagi Rohit Krishna to produce this. Gratitude to: A. The guest speakers who spent time walking our founders through topics like: Getting to IPO Prince Poddar Coaching Subu Goparaju Org Design Arun Vigneswaran B. Our eminent panelists who had brilliant takes on the New world defined by Q-com and the Investing Environment: Arvind R P Kedar Lele Arun Iyer Ravi Kapoor Nitin Agarwal Sumeet Nagar Navin Honagudi And C. The founders- who are changing the world in their own unique ways... Arjun Ashok Shail Daswani Rishabh Agnihotri Misbah Ashraf Prashant Sachan Pulkit Pujara Sudeep Kulkarni Amit Shroff Srinath Srinivasan Aswath Balaji Neal Thakker Shivangi Sharma Pramod Ghadge Rahul KR Sourav Badami Mohit Anand Sarthak Dubey Abhinandan R Prashanth V betwizr. We will share more takeaways from the event in subsequent posts. Onwards and Upwards.

Great to see one of our early investment sticking to its game and opening up the path to success https://lnkd.in/g2h8b4Wq

Our General Partner Rohit Krishna authored an article in ET Edge Insights on startup valuations. The article is a good primer for someone looking to understand how startup valuations are decided through various stages of the startup life cycle and the factors influencing them. It also provides insights into what aspects retail investors should look for while evaluating startup valuations. Link to the article - https://lnkd.in/dhZAb5k5

A couple of days ago WEH Ventures hosted an event for founders and operators in the Consumer Tech space along with All In Capital. Despite heavy rains we had over 60 attendees, most of them being founders building in social media, health & fitness, commerce etc. This was the first event of this kind for us and we tried a lot of new ideas to make the event as interactive and relevant for the audience as we could. Big shout out to Farid Ahsan, Prashant Sachan Saurabh Pandey for generously sharing their time and experience with the group. We're really excited about the potential for Consumer Tech start-ups in India and would love to hear from you if you're building in the space. Deepak Gupta Rohit Krishna Ritik Rustagi Kushal Bhagia Aditya Singh Simran Patel

Calling all founders in the consumer tech space! We've got an exciting event coming up next week (8th July, 5:30PM onwards) in Bangalore along with All In Capital. You can expect to learn from 3 amazing founders Prashant Sachan Farid Ahsan Saurabh Pandey who will share insights on: - Successful strategies for user acquisition, retention and monetization - Understanding your target audience and building a strong brand in India - How companies are leveraging AI/ML to understand consumer behaviour and improve personalization - Fundraising success/ failure stories when talking to Indian and foreign VCs Register using the link in the comments below. See you there! Deepak Gupta Rohit Krishna Ritik Rustagi Gautam Ravi

Some comments from our General Partner Deepak Gupta in the Financial Express (India) on the venture funding environment. If and when funding levels pickup. Too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing

Continuing with our series of startups solving India-specific problems in this edition we cover Porter- which has cracked the problem of intra-city logistics with a focus on SMEs. When they started in 2014- most of the logistics action was focused on long-haul (where each trip is far more valuable). Meanwhile, within the city, the inefficiency was acute- with transporters barely getting 30% utilisation and SMEs (who drive the bulk of this demand) facing unreliable fulfilment. A hard nut to crack, but they did it- you see Porter trucks and mini-trucks everywhere. India has many such inefficiencies to solve for it takes tech and a lot more -grit, patience, and field ops. Porter is worth half a billion and might be a real unicorn in the medium term

Brands are in fashion. "Tech" VCs are all embracing brands as they begin to show serious scale and deeper exits markets make them a sector of interest, relative to others. Some thoughts from us on this segment. https://lnkd.in/d9WaUFPQ