White Whale Gets SEBI Nod For INR 250 Cr Secondaries Fund

Amid the surge in secondary transactions in the Indian startup ecosystem, Mumbai-based VC firm White Whale Ventures has received the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) approval to float a Category II Alternative Investment Fund (AIF).

It will be a secondary deals-focussed fund with a total target corpus of INR 250 Cr, White Whale cofounder Shapath Parikh told Inc42. It will also have a greenshoe option of INR 250 Cr.

The sector-agnostic fund will focus on late stage companies which are eyeing a public market listing in 18-36 months. It will invest in 10-15 startups, with special focus on fintech and consumer-centric sectors, Parikh added.

“With this fund, we’re going to focus on providing exits to other investors on the cap table and providing a liquidity solution to founders with respect to their ESOP programmes,” said Parikh. 

The fund is eyeing first close in the second half of 2025. 

Founded by Parikh and Kunal Vora in 2017, White Whale Group has two verticals – White Whale Venture Fund and White Whale Portfolio Management Services. While the venture fund arm invests in startups, the portfolio management arm handles public market investments.

The VC firm counts startups like Mintoak, M2P Fintech,  Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, iD Fresh Food, and The Indus Valley among its portfolio startups. 

The development comes at a time when secondary deals are on the rise in the Indian startup ecosystem amid the IPO rush of new-age tech companies. While 13 new-age tech companies, including Ola Electric and Swiggy, went public in 2024, this number is expected to be over 20 in 2025. 

A number of these companies are raising funding before the listing process to provide exit to early backers and liquidity to employees. The likes of OfBusiness, Captain Fresh, Urban Company, among others, saw secondary deals in the recent past. 

As a result, there has been a surge in the launch of funds focussed on secondary deals. For instance, Silicon Valley-based VC firm Tribe Capital partnered with homegrown Oister Global last year to launch its first AIF dedicated to secondary transactions in the Indian startup ecosystem. The Oister Tribe Ace Fund 1 has a target corpus of $500 Mn and will be deployed over the next two years.

Asset management company 360 ONE Asset also launched a secondaries fund, ‘Special Opportunities Fund-12’, with a target corpus of INR 4,000 Cr to invest in late stage companies.

In November 2024, former Peak XV Partners’ MD Piyush Gupta launched a secondaries-focussed VC firm, Kenro Capital, for investments in India and South East Asia.

As per ‘The Pulse Of Tech: Inc42’s Annual Founder Survey’, 60% of the 100+ founders said that investor interest in secondary transactions “increased” in 2024.