Business Wire India
Campus Fund which announced its second fund of Rs. 75 crore in July 2022 to fuel student-led start-ups, shared that its Fund II has been oversubscribed by 37%.
The fund garnered substantial support from a diverse range of investors including Large Institutions, Family Offices, Industry Veterans, Entrepreneurs, and Fund Managers amongst others with 54% capital coming from Institutions plus Family offices and 46% coming from Ultra HNIs, with 90% of the total capital being domestic.
Campus Fund was founded by Richa Bajpai in July 2020, while she was studying at the London Business School. Richa started her first startup in her own Dorm Room back in 2009 called NextGen in the Renewable Energy space, followed by co-founding Goodera in 2014 which is backed by Zoom Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Elevation Capital, Omidyar Network, Binny Bansal of Flipkart, Ursula Burns of Xerox amongst others.
Reflecting on the journey thus far, Richa said, “Campus Fund is a testament to the latent potential of student founders, who are poised to rule the global roster in the coming few decades. As Campus Fund, we have the largest sourcing and screening engine with more than 60 Students across India, in search for the next Steve Jobs building out of Indian Campuses.”
S Ramann – Chairman & MD of SIDBI, said, “We are extremely delighted to support Campus Fund, as they are creating entrepreneurs, going to ground zero and finding those hidden gems in universities – this will be integral to propel India towards its ambition of becoming the Startup Hub of the World and the third largest economy.”
Campus Fund has been investing in student founders since November 2020 and has backed 23 Student-led Startups after evaluating 7000 of them. Some notable investments include Digantara (Google Maps for space), Sama (platform for dispute resolution), GreenGrahi (insect-based protein), among others.
Richa further added, “The whole Indian Education Machinery is working towards creating Student Entrepreneurs and we as Campus Fund are yearning to scale up and power more Student Entrepreneurs.”