In a bid to support the growing Indian startup ecosystem, a student-entrepreneur focused VC fund, gradCapital (gC), has launched its second fund worth $6 million. 

As per the official release, the second fund by gradCapital will invest a standard $40,000 for 4% equity. Additionally, the fund will offer funded startups a 4-week cohort programme in Bengaluru to meet entrepreneurs such as Shashank (Co-founder, Razorpay), Tarun Mehta (Co-founder, Ather Energy), Kailash Nadh (CTO, Zerodha), and others.

gradCapital | Invests in Rebellious Student Founders

gradCapital (gC) fund was established by BITS /IIMA alums Abhishek Sethi and Prateek Behera in 2021. In addition to the equity-based investment, the gC fund offers a $5,000 grant titled Atomic Fellowship, supported by Emergent Ventures.

This grant is given to students who wish to work on science projects that can turn into business ideas and innovations.

Speaking about the development, Abhishek Sethi, co-founder and CEO of gC fund, said, 

“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.”

As per Abhishek, it’s a systemic failure when ambitious students aren’t able to take off while in college. He added that these students end up taking a job because of a loan and become too rational. 

In July 2023, Together Fund announced its second fund worth $150 million to continue backing startups in the Indian software-as-a-service (SaaS) and artificial intelligence (AI) space. A month prior to that Lumikai, a VC fund focused on gaming and interactive media, launched its second fund (Fund II) to support promising gaming and interactive media entrepreneurs in India.

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