Episode 17
How To Raise and Manage Venture Capital for Student Founders ($4M+ Invested) - w/ Prateek
In this episode my guest is Prateek Behera. Prateek is a co-founder at gradCapital, which provides funding for college students in india whose projects can change the world.
First moves to steal
- Raise and Manage Venture Capital for Student Founders ($4M+ Invested) - w/ Prateek
- importance of moving fast and DOING (16:13) Raising the first million dollars (20:22) How to network to raise funds (24:13) Mentoring student founders (28:04) Notable companies/projects gradCapital has funded - drone bl00d bank (32:16) Dance India Dance to SAAS Founders (34:42) Advice for student founders (36:14) Focusing on strengths for success (39:19) Outro + Gratitude
Transcript-backed moments
A few lines worth stealing before you hand over the full hour.
so one of those companies turned out to be successful and then you know where zto right now you picked five of them and then you referred them to why combinator we don't encourage people
combinator we don't encourage people there but we do realize that some people better without College the vast majority of Americans do not have master's degree you're good at running your compet he
you're good at running your compet he but that doesn't mean you might be good at running any other company he's 16 and he's building a hardware drone competing against large multi-billion dollar
against large multi-billion dollar companies in the world like hey I'm cool give me money what was it that they think of the idea of you know backing student founders ambitious smart people
student founders ambitious smart people locked together in like not locked but like in one place they push each other more than we can push them I had so many more than we can push them I had so many ideas in college I never acted on a
Show notes
In this episode my guest is Prateek Behera. Prateek is a co-founder at gradCapital, which provides funding for college students in india whose projects can change the world. If you’re a student and have an idea you’re building towards, gradCapital will invest $40k for 4% in you.
We discuss:
-How Prateek and his co-founder started gradCapital.
-The journey so far across multiple rounds of raising investment funds.
-How they shortlist projects to invest in.
-Their contribution to Zepto’s meteoric rise.
-Managing 4-week in-person cohorts with state-of-the-art resources and mentors.
-The creation of the perfect ecosystem to enable success for student founders.
-Incredible discoveries about the value-system of students.
-Qualities Prateek looks for before shortlisting an idea.
-Inspiring narratives of wild projects by gradCapital founders, including a bl00d-bank delivery drone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Support the Ready Set Do podcast:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resources:
gradcapital.in
https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateekbehera96/
Timestamps:
(00:00) Background and Introduction
(02:07) Why gradCapital - the beginning of gC
(03:52) Why fund student founders?
(06:10) Helping student founders apply to YCombinator
(08:03) First stint with raising capital - brush with ZEPTO!
(10:47) What gC looks for in students - belief systems?
(14:28) The importance of moving fast and DOING
(16:13) Raising the first million dollars
(20:22) How to network to raise funds
(24:13) Mentoring student founders
(28:04) Notable companies/projects gradCapital has funded - drone bl00d bank
(32:16) Dance India Dance to SAAS Founders
(34:42) Advice for student founders
(36:14) Focusing on strengths for success
(39:19) Outro + Gratitude