Olufemi Adeyemi 

Venture capital firm gradCapital has announced the launch of its second fund with a total size of $6 Mn to invest in student startups.

The VC firm would invest $40,000 each for a 4% stake in startups. gradCapital claims to invest in around 20 startups in a year.

Founded by Abhishek Sethi and Prateek Behera in 2021, the VC firm is a pan-India student-driven institution that invests in startups launched by college students. It invests in startups that emerge from college projects, especially tech-based projects.

The selected students also participate in a 4-week cohort, where they get to learn from the likes of Ather Energy cofounder Tarun Mehta, Razorpay cofounder Shashank Kumar and Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh.

gradCapital claims that most startups raise capital post the cohort and Lightspeed & Rainmatter Capital are among the investors in these startups.

gradCapital also has a grant program called Atomic Fellowship, through which it distributes grants worth $5,000 to students with technical projects that have the potential of becoming companies.

gradCapital announced its first cohort in 2021, right after its launch, to help 5 startups get into early stage startup accelerator Y Combinator. Zepto, which recently became a unicorn, was among these 5 startups. In the same year, the VC firm also launched a $1 Mn fund to invest in student startups. gradCapital has invested in startups like Airbound, Ripen, Stimuler, among others.

The announcement of the new fund comes amid the ongoing funding winter which has dried up capital for Indian startups. However, this has not stopped VC and PE investors from launching new funds for Indian startups.

As per Inc42 data, 52 funds worth more than $3.8 Bn have been launched so far this year to support Indian startups.

Last month, investment firm Veda VC announced the first close of its INR 250 Cr fund led by family offices and startup CXOs. In the same month, Elev8 Venture Partners said it closed Elev8-Capital Fund 1 at $67 Mn.