Nikhil Kamath's WTF Fund to back young entrepreneurs' fashion, beauty startups

Nikhil Kamath said the idea to set up a fund for young entrepreneurs was inspired by the story of the young founders of Zepto - Aadit Palecha and Kaivalya Vohra.

Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha, True Beacon, and Gruhas, took to his LinkedIn profile on October 11 to unveil the "WTF Fund" initiative. This fund, he said, presents an opportunity for emerging entrepreneurs seeking to excel in the sectors of fashion, beauty, and home brands.

Kamath emphasised that this initiative serves as a means to empower and provide crucial funding support to young entrepreneurs willing to embark on their brand creation journey. It ensures that they are equipped with the necessary resources and expert guidance to pave the way for their success.

Under this initiative, individuals under the age of 22 who are budding entrepreneurs now have the chance to access funding and valuable mentorship.

"Introducing the #WTFFund! Young entrepreneurs under 22 years of age can now grab the opportunity to secure funding and receive mentorship in the home, fashion, beauty or lifestyle sectors from Ananth Narayanan, Raj Shamani, Kishore, and myself," Kamath said in his post on the social networking platform.

Kamath says he is joined by a prestigious group of individuals, including Kishore Biyani, the Founder of Future Group, Ananth Narayanan, the Founder of Mensa Brands, and Raj Shamani, a Content Creator and the Founder of House of X and the Figuring Out Podcast, in providing this support.

The decision to launch the new fund was made during the latest episode of Kamath’s podcast ‘WTF is with Nikhil Kamath’.

“We normally do charity with every episode. We thought we'll do it differently as an experiment this time. We will pick entrepreneurs (under the age of 22) in either fashion, cosmetics or any of the industries we discussed who would otherwise not have got funding and we will fund them by virtue of this podcast,” said Kamath, during the episode 11 titled “WTF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand,” talking to Shamani, Narayanan and Biyani.

After a discussion, the four decided on a fund size of Rs 80 lakh in total with each investing Rs 20 lakh in it. “We will put out an application, have some preset filters, and we'll bring it down to say 10-15 companies. We can then do a zoom call between the four of us and pick. We can also ask them to incorporate all they learned in this episode,” said Kamath.

From the fund, they plan on investing into two such companies.

The Zerodha co-founder said the idea to set up a fund for young entrepreneurs was inspired by the story of the young founders of Zepto - Aadit Palecha and Kaivalya Vohra.

“In the last episode, we had the Zepto guys and the one thing they said that was so incredibly cool, is they got a grant of Rs 40 lakh from a fund when they were 18 and that's what helped them build Zepto,” Kamath added.

Moneycontrol earlier reported that Vohra, at the age of 20, is the youngest on the Hurun India rich list of 2023. Notably, Hurun said that about 10 years ago, the youngest on the list was a 37-year-old entrepreneur, indicating the impact of the startup revolution.

The WTF Fund initiative was launched two months after the establishment of a startup fund by the founders of Gruhas and Collective Artists Network.

Nikhil Kamath has made headlines for his substantial investment of Rs 150 crore in Nazara Technologies, a mobile gaming company and sports media platform. Additionally, he has been in discussions to increase his personal stake in the company.

In another notable development in late September this year, Nikhil Kamath revealed plans to invest Rs 100 crore in Bluestone, an omnichannel jewellery retailer.

Furthermore, a recent report suggests that Kamath is preparing to inject capital into Ather Energy, an electric scooter company.