VC Firm gradCapital Announces $6 Million Fund; Plans To Invest $40,000 To Support Student Entrepreneurs According to an official release, the fund will invest a standard $40,000 for 4% equity and offer funded startups a 4-week cohort programme in Bengaluru to meet notable entrepreneurs

Venture capital fund gradCapital, which focuses on startups founded by students, on Friday launched its second fund of $6 million. According to an official release, the fund will invest a standard $40,000 for 4% equity and offer funded startups a 4-week cohort programme in Bengaluru to meet entrepreneurs such as Tarun Mehta (Co-founder, Ather Energy), Shashank (Co-founder, Razorpay), Kailash Nadh (CTO, Zerodha), and others.

"We are not in the business of finding and investing in deals, we are in the business of letting students be more ambitious and build a future, despite having a challenging education system. Being a student also has an unfair advantage: building with friends, not being scared of thinking big, and being scrappy/fast with their project. It's a systemic failure when ambitious students aren't able to take off while in college, and they end up taking a job because of a loan, and become too rational. After which, they are more likely to start a D2C company instead of a quantum computer, and we need more of the latter," said Abhishek, co-founder and CEO.

Post earlier gC cohort, about 30% of startups had raised an average follow-on round of $600,000 from venture funds Lightspeed and Rainmatter Capital. They fund 20 startups a year out of around 3,000 applications, stated the release.

The fund was established by BITS /IIMA alums in 2021. Other than the equity-based investment, the fund also offers a $5,000 grant titled Atomic Fellowship, supported by Emergent Ventures, to students who wish to work on science projects that can turn into business ideas and innovations.