Whiteboard Capital, a venture capital fund renowned for its early-stage investments in fintechs and consumer brands, has successfully closed its second fund at ₹300 crore, significantly surpassing its initial target of ₹150 crore. The closure of Fund 2, which took place in December 2023, was not previously reported.
The venture capital firm, known for its investments in fintechs such as Cred, Jupiter, and Dezerv, as well as consumer brands like Damensch and NatHabit, has already delivered a 1x return to its investors. Anshu Prasher, a partner at Whiteboard Capital, revealed that the firm holds an unrealised gain of around 6x from its first fund. This fund, which had a total corpus of $10 million, invested in approximately 45 startups and achieved exits from eight startups, either partially or completely.
Whiteboard Capital sets itself apart by combining the roles of an incubator and an early-stage fund. The firm has an operating team deployed to its portfolio companies for extended periods, focusing on areas such as operations, data analytics, and technology. This unique approach was highlighted in a recent report by ET on August 14, which noted that Whiteboard Capital is behind the sports athleisure brand launched by retired Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and former Swiggy Instamart head Karthik Gurumurthy. The firm employed a similar incubation approach with ApnaKlub, a B2B wholesale platform for fast-moving consumer goods.
Fund 2, which has already started deploying capital, includes several family offices and domestic institutions as limited partners (LPs). The fund aims to invest in around 50 companies, with a significant portion of the capital reserved for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies.
Prasher explained, “In Fund 2, 30-35% of deployable capital will go towards new cheques and roughly a double of that is reserved for follow-on into (existing) companies. In Fund 1, one of the things that I think we could have done better is that we could have written more follow-on cheques in portfolio companies. But because of not having enough capital, we could not do that. So, we had to be more judicious with follow-on investing.”
This strategy reflects a broader trend among early-stage investors who are raising larger funds to focus on follow-on investments and gaining deeper involvement in their portfolio companies. Whiteboard Capital was founded by Sandeep Tandon, co-founder of the mobile recharge platform Freecharge, and Kunal Shah, the founder of Cred. The firm’s philosophy of investing in founders even before their business plans are fully formed allows it to invest at low enterprise valuations. Most of their investments occurred when startups were less than two months old or not yet incorporated.
Following Kunal Shah’s departure to join Sequoia as an advisor in 2017, Sandeep Tandon brought in Anshu Prasher as a partner. Prasher, formerly an early-stage investor at Innoven Capital and Saama Capital, has played a crucial role in the firm’s growth.
Currently, around 40% of Whiteboard Capital’s investments by volume are in the consumer sector, including both consumer brands and consumer tech, while 30-35% is allocated to financial services companies. The firm categorizes its portfolio investments into core and non-core companies. For Fund 2, core companies are those where the firm holds more than a 7.5% ownership stake and has invested over $200,000.
Prasher expressed optimism about the future, stating, “We will see more $400-750 million exits in India and potentially a few $3-5 billion exits, which is the reason why we consciously stayed on with this strategy of coming in extremely early, taking that bet or chance on the founders.”
He also discussed the influx of tech venture capitalists into the consumer space, noting that it creates a tailwind for portfolio companies, helping them attract better attention and follow-on investment as they approach product-market fit
