Campus Fund Research
Investment Thesis
Campus Fund is India's first and only SEBI-registered Category II Alternative Investment Fund that invests exclusively in student-led startups, including recent graduates and dropouts. Founded in late 2020 by Richa Bajpai (who earlier co-founded Goodera and the renewable-energy startup NextGen), the fund's core belief is that the next big ideas come from dorm rooms, not boardrooms. It positions itself explicitly as India's answer to Harvard's Dorm Room Fund model, and one of its own advisors, Dr. Morgan (Chair and General Partner at B Capital), is the co-founder of First Round Capital and the original launcher of the Dorm Room Fund in the U.S. Campus Fund runs a student-staffed investing model: student investors take first meetings and evaluate deal flow under the supervision of the core team and a network of senior advisors and portfolio-company founders.
Sector Focus
Campus Fund is sector-agnostic by design — the qualifying criterion is the founder's status (current student, recent graduate, or dropout), not the vertical. The current portfolio spans HealthTech (D-Nome, Human Biogenesis, Dr. Doodley, Zeuron.ai, Raaz), Space Tech (Digantara, EtherealX), Mobility (Sarla Aviation, an eVTOL/urban air mobility company), Enterprise Software and SaaS (We360, Formi, CTRL B, Bidaal, Expand My Business, Digital Labour Chowk, Sama), FinTech/InsurTech (Bharat Sure), AgriTech (Green Grahi), Food & Beverage (Mumbai Pav Co., Gramiyaa, Sortizy), Consumer Internet (Emote, Plutus, Banza), and Travel/Hospitality (Raho Hospitalities). The fund also runs the annual "Grand Challenge," a nationwide student-startup competition that has featured 70+ startups and helped fund 25+ of them since 2020.
Stage Focus
Campus Fund writes first institutional cheques — typically the first pre-seed capital a student founder receives — on founder-friendly terms, then stays engaged for follow-on rounds by making introductions to later-stage global investors. It explicitly positions itself as "often the first believers with an institutional cheque on student friendly terms."
Check Size
The fund's public materials and third-party trackers describe early-stage funding for student founders of up to roughly $1M, consistent with a pre-seed/seed check-writing program layered under a $100M Fund III. Exact check-size bands are not published on the firm's own site.
Lead Tendency
Unclear from public materials. The fund frames itself as "often the first believers with an institutional cheque," suggesting it frequently leads or is the sole institutional investor in a founder's first round, but it does not explicitly claim a lead/co-lead policy.
Recent Activity
Campus Fund is actively deploying from its $100M Fund III. In September 2026 it launched "Build In India," a $10M carve-out of Fund III to back student and young founders — of any nationality or university — who choose to build their startups from India. The firm reports evaluating 4,420 startups so far in 2026 (10.6% founded by students at international universities, up from 7.1% in 2025 and 4.5% in 2024), and says five of its last ten investments went to founders who studied abroad and returned to India, with six of those companies having raised over $24M in follow-on capital. Portfolio company Sarla Aviation (eVTOL/urban air mobility) has been particularly active, partnering with Siemens on its electric air-taxi program in 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable portfolio companies include Digantara (space-situational-awareness / "Google Maps for Space"), Sarla Aviation (India's flying-taxi/eVTOL company, now partnered with Siemens), EtherealX (space propulsion, styled "SpaceX of India"), We360.ai (employee productivity analytics), CTRL B (observability data engine, IIT Bombay founders), and Bharat Sure (employee-benefits insurtech). The portfolio skews heavily toward IIT/IIM/top-university founders (IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IIM Ahmedabad) alongside a growing cohort from international schools (Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Wharton, NYU's The New School, Kellogg).
Team
- Richa Bajpai — Founder & CEO. Previously co-founded Goodera (backed by Zoom Ventures, Omidyar Network, Elevation Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Binny Bansal) and NextGen, a renewable-energy startup she launched from her dorm room with RBS Foundation support. Serves on the Investment Committee of The Creator Fund (UK).
- The firm is supported by a large bench of senior advisors and jury members drawn from Indian VC and industry, including Bharat Shah (HDFC Bank co-founder), Phanindra Sama (redBus founder, Westbridge advisor), Kartik Hosanagar (Wharton professor, Yodle founder), and Dr. Morgan (B Capital Chair/GP, First Round Capital co-founder, original Dorm Room Fund launcher).
- The working team (associates/analysts named on the team page without fully disambiguated titles) includes Abhijit (ex-TresVista), Amit (ex-Namma Yatri, Bounce Infinity, Aditya Birla Group), Anuj (ex-Entrepreneur First, Kalaari, Axis Capital), Magendra (ex-McKinsey, joined as Fellow in 2022, promoted to Associate in 2023), Manjesh (CA/CS, ex-Goodera, ex-Sobha Developers), Naveena Pallavi (ex-xto10x, Multiply Ventures, Lightbox Ventures, Citibank), Preksha (ex-IndusLaw, Rocket Health), Priyanka, Sanket (ex-TheCapitalNet), and Shifa (ex-Goldman Sachs investor, ex-Spectatr.ai founding CBO).
Decision Process
Student investors handle first meetings and initial evaluation; investment decisions run through the core partnership team backed by the senior advisor bench, consistent with a partnership-style process rather than a solo-GP model.
Founder Preferences
Eligibility is explicit and mechanical: a current student (undergrad, postgrad, or research), or a graduate/dropout within the last three years, who holds at least 25% equity in the company being built. The fund states it evaluates the founder and what they want to build, not university pedigree, nationality, or background.
Geographic Focus
Headquartered in Bengaluru (WeWork Prestige Cube, Koramangala). While the fund is India-focused — student founders building from India — the September 2026 "Build In India" initiative explicitly widens sourcing to founders anywhere (Indian, Indian-origin, or fully foreign) who choose to build their company from India, citing AI, geopolitics, and the maturing India capital/support ecosystem as drivers.
Structure Note
Campus Fund (the entity referenced here, SEBI Category II AIF, registration IN/AIF2/21-22/1023) operates alongside a sibling vehicle, Campus Angel Fund (SEBI Category I AIF, registration IN/AIF1/25-26/1851). Both are managed by Sach Advisors Private Limited as Investment Manager, with MITCON Credentia Trusteeship Services Limited as trustee.