Healthcare investment firm W Health Ventures announced the final close of its oversubscribed Fund II at ₹700 crore on Tuesday, beating its initial target of ₹630 crore. According to managing partner Pankaj Jethwani, Fund II will target large problems within niche markets across oncology, preventive health, geriatrics and pain management.
He added that W Health Ventures, which is India’s first healthcare company creation fund, plans to build 8 to 10 companies with ticket sizes ranging from ₹30-50 crore each over the next four years, guiding them from the pre-idea stage to category leaders.
“We want to focus on problems that are very large, but in markets that are still small… because there aren’t yet solutions that are 10 times better. We think we can build those solutions and scale them,” he added.
While a venture capital fund typically invests in young, high-growth startups for an equity stake, W Health’s company creation model employs a hands-on approach, identifying a white space, partnering with to build a startup from the ground up and scaling it up. “We go to the parts of the healthcare system where the structural mismatch is the highest, and we stay with that problem for a year, sometimes longer, chipping away at it before we build anything,” said Jethwani.
Unlike traditional venture capital funds that back pre-existing, high-growth startups for an equity stake, W Health’s company creation model builds ventures from the ground up—identifying critical industry gaps, ideating solutions, and partnering with entrepreneurs to launch and scale them. “We go to the parts of the healthcare system where the structural mismatch is the highest, and we stay with that problem for a year, sometimes longer, chipping away at it before we build anything,” said Jethwani.
W Health Ventures’ 50-person in-house team of physicians, operators, and technologists identifies structural gaps in healthcare delivery, spends 12 to 18 months pressure-testing the opportunity, and then recruits an exceptional founding team to build and scale, Jethwani said. “A lot of these companies and models don’t exist today,” he added.
India’s hospital market was 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).
Niche focus
The firm has already deployed capital from its second fund to two companies: Everhope Oncology, founded with , which is advancing oncology into coordinated, patient-centered care; and Everbright Health, which is scaling advanced interventions for treatment-resistant depression in the US.
“We’re gravitating towards large problems in geriatrics, preventive health, chronic pain management, diabetes, oncology,” Jethwani said. The fund remains focused on single-specialty healthcare platforms for the domestic Indian market, and business-to-business (B2B) services built for the US market, he added.
The firm is also constantly scouting for talent and to help build its new ventures. It encourages prospective founders to apply to build healthcare ventures with them and is already tracking over 350,000 people who have applied, Jethwani said.
W Health Ventures 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 these have raised external growth capital.