We Founder Circle Cofounder Neeraj Tyagi Passes Away

SUMMARY

Tyagi passed away on August 16, at the age of 50

Besides We Founder Circle, he also cofounded investment companies, including Avinya Ventures and Invstt

He was also a notable angel investor, backing more than 60 startups, including Zypp Electric, Oben Electric and Garuda Aerospace, among others

Marking another tragic loss in the Indian startup ecosystem, We Founder Circle cofounder and chief executive officer Neeraj Tyagi passed away on Saturday (August 16) at the age of 50.

The cause of his death was not immediately known.

Besides We Founder Circle, Tyagi also cofounded investment companies, including Avinya Ventures and Invstt. He was also a notable face in the angel investment space, backing more than 60 startups, including Zypp Electric, Oben Electric and Garuda Aerospace, among others.

Tyagi launched We Founder Circle in 2020 as a network of founders and strategic angels supporting startups from seed to Series C stages. This community has backed more than 150 startups, including Pixxel, Clensta, Mugafi, ParkMate and more.

This comes at a time when the Indian startup landscape is grappling with the untimely demise of well-known founders, including Amit Banerji of Table Space and Vikas Kumar of LoapTap.

Tyagi also launched Invstt in 2020, an investment marketplace connecting startup founders with active investors. It claims to offer a network of more than 20,000 global investors from 65 countries.

Tyagi’s latest initiative, Avinya Ventures, launched in 2024, aims to support early stage startups with an average ticket size ranging from $250K to $1 Mn.

Inside We Founder Circle’s Early Stage Playbook

As per Inc42’s report, We Founder Circle emerged as one of the most active startup investors in the first half of 2025 (H1 2025), with a deal tally of 41 that includes Hedged, Pickkup, Growit, Machaxi, Awnest and Tarzanway among its investments.

Earlier this year, We Founder Circle led an undisclosed seed funding round in D2C dinnerware brand BlackCarrot.

In 2023, We Founder Circle’s (WFC) GIFT City Fund raised $10 Mn and onboarded more than 250 investors to back early stage startups in India.

It competes with the likes of ah! Ventures, Blume Ventures, Rainmatter by Zerodha, InnoVen Capital, among others.

The report further said that seed stage startups managed to pull in $406 Mn across 215 deals in the first half of 2025, marking a 6% YoY decline. In contrast, growth stage investments jumped 18% YoY, breaching $2 Bn across 143 deals.