W Health Ventures, India's first healthcare company creation fund, has successfully closed its second fund at ₹700 crore, surpassing its initial target of ₹630 crore. According to managing partner Pankaj Jethwani, the fund closure represents a significant milestone for the venture capital firm's expansion plans in the healthcare sector. The firm plans to use this capital to build 8-10 healthcare companies from the pre-idea stage to category leaders over the next four years, deploying capital in ₹30-50 crore cheques to develop niche healthcare platforms across oncology, preventive care, geriatrics, and pain management. As reported by Business Standard, the money will be deployed as seed funding across healthcare startups incubated by W Health Ventures, with the fund having a four-year investment period and targeting two to three companies a year.
The firm's approach differs fundamentally from conventional venture funds by developing businesses from the ground up rather than primarily investing in existing startups. As reported by Business Standard, W Health Ventures operates under a hands-on company creation model where its 50-member team of physicians, operators and technologists identifies structural gaps in healthcare delivery, spends 12-24 months pressure-testing opportunities, and then recruits exceptional founding teams to build and scale companies. Managing partner Dr Pankaj Jethwani explained that the firm focuses on problems that are very large but in markets that are still small, stating they want to build solutions that are 10 times better than existing alternatives. The firm avoids a template approach by emphasizing they're not importing a Silicon Valley playbook and hoping it works here. While W Health incubated only 4-5 companies as part of its first fund, it aims to focus the second fund exclusively on company building, with the fund already building two companies under the second fund, and a third one coming up soon.
The company creation model has already produced two companies under Fund II, according to Business Standard. Everhope Oncology, founded in partnership with Narayana Health, is advancing oncology into coordinated, patient-centered care, while Everbright Health is scaling advanced interventions for treatment-resistant depression in the US. The firm's portfolio companies have collectively reached 25 million patients to date, demonstrating the scale of impact from their healthcare solutions. W Health Ventures has also invested $60 million in 12 companies through Fund I, including Nivaan (chronic pain), BeatO (diabetes), ElevateNow (obesity), BabyMD (paediatrics), and Mylo (parenting) in India, as well as Wysa (AI mental health services) and Reveal HealthTech (AI transformation services) abroad, all of which have raised external growth capital.
The investment firm is capitalizing on India's growing healthcare market, with the hospital market valued at $98.98 billion in 2023 and projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% from 2024 to 2032, according to a report by India Brand and Equity Foundation (IBEF). Dr Pankaj Jethwani highlighted India's healthcare inflection point, stating that rising demand and constrained supply create structural mismatches where lasting businesses can be built. The firm is actively building its talent pipeline, with Jethwani revealing they're tracking over 350,000 people who have applied to build healthcare ventures with them, constantly scouting for exceptional talent to help build their new ventures. The fund's limited partners include family offices and institutions in both India and the US that are interested in the Indian healthcare space.
Looking ahead, W Health Ventures aims to focus on two key themes - using artificial intelligence (AI) to bridge India's healthcare supply-demand gaps and building India into a healthcare superpower for the world. As reported by Business Standard, the latter would include backing AI-enabled healthcare services that can develop full-stack solutions for global markets. The venture fund has already started deploying its second fund, having seed-funded Everhope Oncology, which was founded alongside Narayana Health in March 2025. The second fund has been registered as a Category II alternative investment fund (AIF) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), having been based in the US for the first fund. The firm usually invests ticket sizes between ₹30 crore and ₹50 crore, targeting first-to-market single-speciality healthcare solutions, with Jethwani noting that single-speciality helps in building capital efficiently with lower capital expenditure.
