Nearly one year ago, General Catalyst announced the inaugural pool of Boston-area students responsible for bringing a new source of capital to the city’s college campuses. Rough Draft Ventures debuted as a way to foster the student startups being built in a city known for launching big-name companies out of Greater Boston’s dorm rooms, including Dropbox, Facebook and HubSpot.
On Thursday, Rough Draft announced the newest cohort of collegiates who will be investing anywhere between $5,000 to $25,000 in local student startups.
“I feel really good about how diverse of a team we have, just in terms of schools, genders and skillsets,” said Peter Boyce, a recent Harvard graduate-turned-associate for General Catalyst.
Rough Draft will be welcoming graduate students to the team for the first time, who Boyce acknowledged will bring a different perspective from what they’re learning in class. The group also boasts more technical talent than before.
Since the first $20,000 investment was made in Speech4Good in March, Rough Draft has gone on to invest in 14 other startups, including medication adherence app Nightingale and law enforcement information management company Mark43. The founders that Rough Draft has backed have also gone on to raise more than $3 million in seed funding. Some have even been accepted into Summer@Highland, Y Combinator or received Thiel Fellowships.
Moving forward, Boyce said the team will be focusing more on the “community component.” On Monday, Rough Draft will be hosting a free event for student entrepreneurs interested in what it takes to build a founding team. The overall goal, for Boyce, is to start providing the student entrepreneurship community “with a place they can always meet and discover like-minded peers.”
Boyce promised the leadership team will start creating and sharing more content showcasing what being a student founder is really all about, as well as working more with the community.
To see whose voices will be behind this new content, check out…
the new Rough Draft Ventures Team.
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