NextGen has $4m to prove Australia’s best founders are still in lecture halls
Mitchell Hughes says universities are producing brilliant young founders — so he built a fund to find them first. Some of Australia’s top VCs and founders are now supporting it.
Fifteen months ago, Blackbird partner Niki Scevak wrote a $500,000 cheque to a 23-year-old who had never made an investment.
Mitchell Hughes had never written a cheque himself. What he had done was prove a thesis: some of the country’s best founders are still on campus — and no one was taking advantage of that arbitrage opportunity.
Student VC fund NextGen Ventures closes its first fund later this month. It has raised $4.3 million so far — nearly double its original target — from some of the country’s most notable VCs, such as Scevak, and founders, with more commitments expected before close.
Hughes and co-founder Jerry X’Lingson write $70,000 cheques into pre-seed startups run by university students.
