Asia’s first and only student-led fund which invests in student founders, Campus Fund, has raised $10 million (about Rs 75 crore) for its second fund from large institutions, family offices, and general partners of leading funds. The start-up invests in student-led startups. 

Various organisations including, IIFL Wealth, Omidyar Network India, Bharat Shah (former chairman of HDFC NSE -0.16% Securities), Jaimin Bhatt (CFO, Kotak Mahindra Bank NSE 0.08%), Kanwajit Singh (founder, Fireside Ventures), Shivkumar Janardhanan (former CEO, Essilor India) participated in the round.

The said startup was launched in July 2022 and provides employment to students as investors, who scout, evaluate and also get an opportunity to sit in the decision-making with regard to investments in student-led startups. The startup, Campus Fund was founded by Richa Bajpai, who co-founded Goodera, a technology platform in the Tech4Good space.

In its first round (Fund I) the startup was able to raise Rs 7 crore which was invested across 10 startups. By continuing to do so, Campus Fund will also invest at the pre-seed stage, from the money raised in round second. 

Startups including, Digantara, and HealthySure, which were invested in from the funding of round 1 have gone on to raise follow-on funding from Tanglin, Venture Partners, Chairatae Ventures, and Kalaari Capital. 

“We worked with over 60 students across the country to scout and evaluate more than 1,600 student-led start-startups in the last two years,” Bajpai said in a statement. “We now have a portfolio of 10 diverse student-led startups with strong fundamentals and a potential to shape the future and contribute towards India’s ambition of becoming a $5 trillion economy.”

Campus Fund has a portfolio that has 40% non-tech founders, 30% female co-founders and 30% hardware-first tech-enabled student-led startups.

“We are excited to back Richa and the team at Campus Fund in their mission to promote student entrepreneurship in the country. This will give impetus to the bold young entrepreneurs who are solving important problems in the country and generating employment,” said Sarvesh Kanodia, principal at Omidyar Network India in a statement.

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