Campus Fund Secures $10 Mn To Back Pre-Seed Stage Startups In India

Venture capital firm Campus Fund has raised $10 Mn (nearly INR 75 Cr) for its second fund,  Campus Fund II that will invest in Pre-Seed stage startups in India. The fund has a corpus of 75 Cr.

The round saw participation from IIFL Wealth, Omidyar Network India, Bharat Shah from HDFC Securities, Jaimin Bhatt from Kotak, Kanwajit Singh from Fireside Ventures, Shivkumar Janardhanan from Essilor India. 

Commenting on the investment, Karan Bhagat, founder of IIFL Wealth, said, “Campus Fund is contributing well to unearth the most exciting startup talent in Indian universities. Student Entrepreneurs are shaping a better future for everyone in India and Bharat and we at IIFL Wealth & Asset Management will continue to do our part to help build this ecosystem.”

Set up in 2020 by Richa Bajpai, the Bengaluru and Mumbai-based student-led venture capital firm primarily invests in student-led startups. It claims to have worked along with more than 60 students across India that have assisted in scouting and calibrating over 1600 student-led startups in the past two years.

Campus Fund’s first fund- Fund I, which had a corpus of INR 7 Cr, backed 10 Indian startups such as LegalTech, ParkSmar, HealthySure, and Expand My Business. 

At present, its portfolio includes 40% non-tech founders, 30% female cofounders, 30% Masters and PhD cofounders, 70% B2B startups, and 30% hardware-first tech-enabled startups.

Earlier, Campus Fund partnered with AWS to launch the Grand Challenge 2020. This association helped the two organisations in identifying and recognising student entrepreneurs across the country. 

The contest was won by agritech startup qZense Labs while WorkDuck and Sandbird were runner-ups. As a winning prize, the three startups received AWS credits worth $10K and also, a chance to present their businesses to Campus Fund’s investors.

For the last few months, the Indian business ecosystem is noticing a growing trend of serial entrepreneurs or individual investors leaving their corporate roles and setting up their venture capital funds. Recently, SoftBank Investment Advisers’ CEO Rajeev Misra stepped down from the investment giant to set up his own venture capital fund. Earlier in June, KKR’s advisor Sanjay Nayar also launched a venture capital fund to back early-stage startups working in the fields of consumer tech, fintech and SaaS. 

Earlier, six-month-old VC firm All In Capital launched a $10 Mn fund for early-stage startups working in consumer tech.