A cohort of student entrepreneurs from Tetr College of Business has collectively raised over ₹1 crore in seed funding, marking one of the largest collective early-stage fundraises by undergraduate student founders in India within a single academic cohort.
The funding has been secured by startups built by international students representing more than 50 countries, with ventures spanning food & beverages, beauty, sustainability, wellness, home care, and consumer products.
The investor syndicate includes several prominent founders and industry leaders such as Gaurav Khatri, CEO & Co-Founder of Noise; Sidhant Keshwani, Founder & CEO of Libas; Rajiv Batra, Co-Founder of Palo Alto Networks; Nikita Khanna, Founder of Moxie Beauty; Sifat Khurana, Founder & CBO of Innovist; Ankush Talwar, Co-Founder & Chief Data Science Officer at GoKwik; Saurav Adlakha, Founder & COO of DailyObjects; and Shashank Randev, Founder & General Partner at 247VC, among others.
The capital will be deployed towards product development, manufacturing, inventory expansion, strengthening supply chains, distribution, market expansion, and scaling operations across both Indian and international markets.
Student Startups Across Consumer Categories
The funded ventures represent a diverse range of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands developed during Tetr’s undergraduate programme.
Among them is Jhatak, a small-batch Indonesian sambal brand introducing Southeast Asian flavours to Indian consumers; Too Much, a lip oil brand focused on hydrating everyday beauty products; Lavella, a sustainable home-care startup offering detergent sheets that combine detergent, softener, and fragrance into a single-use format; and Nothing But, a freeze-dried fruit snack brand made entirely from real fruit without added sugar, preservatives, flavours, or additives.
Several other ventures launched during the semester explored categories including functional beverages, wellness products, personal care, and sustainable consumer goods, reflecting growing entrepreneurial interest in India’s rapidly expanding D2C ecosystem.
Building Businesses as Part of the Classroom
The startups were founded by students pursuing Tetr’s Bachelor’s in Management and Technology programme, who are currently completing their second academic semester in India.
Rather than following a conventional classroom curriculum, students were tasked with identifying market opportunities, building brands from scratch, establishing manufacturing and supply chains, launching products, and selling directly to consumers through online and offline channels.
Throughout the programme, students collaborated with manufacturers, logistics partners, marketplaces, and distributors while simultaneously managing branding, marketing, customer acquisition, and day-to-day operations. Many ventures achieved early commercial traction through retail activations, pop-up events, online commerce, and pilot partnerships.
Speaking about the journey, Matias Tejerina, Founder of Nothing But, said the startup was created to address the gap between unhealthy snacks and products marketed as healthy despite containing multiple additives.
“We wanted to create something simple—real fruit in a convenient format. The early consumer response has been encouraging, and this funding will help us strengthen the product while expanding distribution.”
Investors Back Student Execution
Commenting on the investments, Gaurav Khatri, CEO & Co-Founder of Noise, said the student founders stood out for their clarity of thought and ability to execute despite being at an early stage.
He noted that the ventures were not academic exercises but real businesses solving customer problems in highly competitive consumer markets, demonstrating a level of curiosity and adaptability often seen in experienced founders.
Pratham Mittal, Founder of Tetr College of Business, said the institution’s goal is to move business education beyond classrooms by placing students in real operating environments where they learn by building companies.
He added that the latest funding round highlights not only the scale of capital raised but also the diversity of businesses being created by students from across the world while they continue pursuing their undergraduate education.
Expanding a Global Entrepreneurship Model
The India semester follows the cohort’s first academic term in Dubai, where students focused on cross-border digital commerce and collectively launched 37 ventures, generating revenues exceeding AED 120,000.
Tetr’s previous cohort of 110 students from over 45 countries had earlier launched 61 startups, collectively generating more than USD 300,000 in revenue. One of the notable ventures from that batch was ServeClub, India’s first community-led pickleball startup, which later secured seed funding from the founders of Rare Rabbit and The Moms Co.
Earlier this year, Tetr itself raised USD 18 million from Owl Ventures and Bertelsmann India Investments. The institution follows an experiential “learning-by-doing” model and reports an acceptance rate of 2.6%, with students often choosing Tetr over admissions from universities including MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and King’s College London.
By combining global exposure with hands-on entrepreneurship, Tetr aims to enable students to build and scale businesses even before completing their undergraduate degrees.
