Nikhil Kamath Unveils New Grant Fund To Back 40 Founders Under 25 Years Of Age

Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath on Monday (April 15) launched his newest grant initiative ‘WTFund’ for young entrepreneurs below the age of 25. 

The new sector-agnostic fund will back up to 40 startup founders with a non-dilutive grant of INR 20 Lakh each. This translates into a total corpus size of around INR 8 Cr. In addition, the WTFund will also offer mentorship, networking opportunities, and media training to the selected founders. 

“… the fund provides access to operator-first mentorship pods, a vibrant community through the WTF ecosystem, a Go-To-Market (GTM) studio, beta testing, and feedback opportunities, as well as talent acquisition channels through an internship program, a fractional CXO database, and moonlighting opportunities,” a statement said. 

The selected founders will receive “tailored support” till they secure their first institutional funding. Underlining the fund’s investment thesis, the statement said it will target “individuals who have the potential to revolutionise their industries through innovative ideas and compelling visions”. 

“… Today, young founders tend to create the most impact within entrepreneurship. At WTF, our goal is to cultivate a culture that encourages young entrepreneurs to embrace risk by providing a comprehensive support system. We are excited to launch the fund and see where it goes,” said Kamath. 

The founders will be selected for the mentorship programme through a screening process spanning a year. The fund began accepting applications from startup founders starting April 15.

The launch of the new initiative comes as the Zerodha cofounder has been on a spree of new fund launches in the past few months. In October last year, he introduced a funding and mentorship programme for entrepreneurs under the age of 22. 

The fund, called WTF Fund, took shape during an episode of Kamath’s podcast which featured Mensa Brands’ Ananth Narayanan, Kishore Biyani of Future Group, and House of X founder Raj Shamani. Each of these three names invested INR 10 Lakh towards the corpus, which will fund two startups, with Kamath contributing the rest. 

Not just this, Kamath partnered with Abhijit Pai’s venture capital firm Gruhas and Collective Artists Network, earlier this year, to launch a new fund that will invest in consumer-facing brands and products.

Nikhil, along with his brother and Zerodha cofounder Nithin Kamath, through their two companies, also invested INR 100 Cr to pick up a stake in gaming startup Nazara Technologies earlier this year.

In the last few months, Nikhil Kamath has also invested in startups such as EV maker Ather Energy, green hydrogen startup Ossus Biorenewables, Subko Coffee, finfluencer Sharan Hegde’s edtech platform “The 1% Club”, among others.