Campus Fund, India’s first and only SEBI-registered AIF Category II venture capital fund focused solely on student and college dropout-led startups, has announced the launch of its third and largest fund to date—a $100 million corpus. With over 50% of the fund already committed, it has successfully completed its first close and made two initial investments.
Founded by serial entrepreneur Richa Bajpai, Campus Fund is reshaping the venture capital landscape by investing in first-time founders who are still in university, have dropped out, or are within three years of graduating. After co-founding Goodera—backed by Nexus, Omidyar, Elevation, and Binny Bansal—Richa formulated the idea for Campus Fund during her time at London Business School in 2020. What started as a modest initiative has now grown into a $100 million institutional platform empowering India’s future generation of innovators.
“Campus Fund is not just a VC firm—it’s a movement to unlock the genius scattered across campuses,” said Richa. “With Fund III, we double down on our conviction that student founders aren’t just dreamers—they’re doers, redefining the future from dorm rooms, garages, and labs.”
Richa began her own entrepreneurial journey in 2009, during her final year of engineering. “This is a full-circle moment for me,” she added. “I started in a dorm room with nothing but an idea and ambition. To now back students chasing bold ideas—that’s the most meaningful chapter of my career.”
Today’s student entrepreneurs are breaking out of the boundaries of elite institutions, emerging from Tier 2 and Tier 3 colleges, small towns, and unconventional backgrounds. Many are college dropouts who choose to build rather than follow traditional paths. As access to knowledge continues to grow, Campus Fund is using Fund III to actively democratize capital for this bold new generation of founders.
“The next unicorn may not come from Silicon Valley or Bengaluru—it might come from a hostel room in Bhopal or a garage in Surat,” Richa added.
Campus Fund operates through a robust network of over 100 student scouts across universities and evaluates more than 7,000 startups each year. With Fund III, the firm plans to invest in up to 60 startups over the next four years, issuing initial checks ranging from ₹1 crore to ₹8 crore. Campus Fund has reserved 50% of the fund specifically for follow-on investments to support the growth of its portfolio companies.
The fund has previously backed a diverse range of startups, including Expand My Business (a managed marketplace for digital services), Digantara (space situational awareness), EtherealX (fully reusable rockets), Sama (online dispute resolution), D-Nome (decentralized genomics infrastructure), Sarla (flying taxis), and GreenGrahi (insect protein). Many of these ventures have gone on to secure follow-on funding from top-tier global investors such as Peak XV Partners, Accel, a16z, AlphaWave, and DST Global.
Fund III is backed by a diverse group of supporters, including family offices, successful entrepreneurs, industrialists, and financial institutions such as 360 One. Many limited partners from Fund II have also recommitted. Prominent backers include Kanwaljit Singh (founder, Fireside Ventures), Bharat Shah (co-founder, HDFC Bank), Jaimin Bhatt (former group CFO, Kotak Mahindra Bank), Asha Jadeja Motwani (early investor in Google), and Sameen Farooqui (global head of FX, Deutsche Bank).
With this strong momentum, Campus Fund solidifies its position as India’s most active early-stage investor in youth-led innovation—setting a bold precedent for venture capital in emerging markets. Supporting student and dropout founders is no longer a fringe idea; it’s proving to be one of the smartest and most transformative investments of this decade, offering not just financial returns but generational impact.
