Student entrepreneurs are receiving a better shot at a capital. The Harvard-based Xfund announced Thursday it's closed a second fund of $100 million — a big jump from the roughly $10 million the early-stage VC firm started with.
Formerly known as The Experiment Fund, the Xfund launched in early 2012, with the help of Harvard University and storied venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates — two of the longest-living institutions in their respective fields. "When anyone designs any institution, they always want it to live beyond the length of the founders," said Patrick Chung in a previous interview.
The Xfund's newfound financing will help achieve that, as will Chung taking on a full-time role at the firm. Chung, who was serving as a partner at New Enterprise Associates at the time of the Xfund's launch, announced Thursday he would be joining the Xfund as general partner. Chung will be based out of the firm's new Sand Hill Road office, while his co-founding general partner Hugo Van Vuuren continues to lead the Cambridge office.
Other co-founding members of the team included Jim Breyer, general partner at Accel; Alan Crane, general partner at Polaris Partners; Harry Weller, general partner at NEA; and Harvard Professor David Edwards, founder of Le Laboratoire in Paris and Cambridge.
Although anchored at Harvard, an affiliation with the university is not required. The Xfund invests in a wide variety of sectors, having already poured money into the likes of Harvard-spun streaming TV startup Philo, which recently brought on a Facebook founder as CEO, and connected nursery device startup Rest Devices.
Shared Chung in a statement:
When we founded Xfund three years ago, it was an experiment to bring the nation’s top venture capital resources to the staggering talent that had grown up in university towns. The experiment is working: our founders have access to decades of company-building success and to rare intellectual firepower in these universities. We think the most exceptional founders have technical talent rooted in a liberal arts background – so we seek to invest in individuals with this experience and potential.
The Xfund has seen 3,500 opportunities, according to the team, although only having invested in a handful of them. Moving forward, the firm will continue to invest in "experiments that can change the world."
“The curiosity and creativity of the founders we support is our lifeblood," shared Van Vuuren in a statement. "You can be both a hacker and a humanist — and we believe that combination produces outsized results.”
The main limited partners for the new fund are NEA, Breyer Capital and Accel Partners, Xfund said in the news release. Polaris also contributed to the new fund, Van Vuuren said.
Image via Marcio Jose Bastos Silva/Shutterstock
