Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath has launched a funding and mentorship programme, WTF Fund, for entrepreneurs under the age of 22. The fund aims to back young entrepreneurs working in the beauty, home, fashion and lifestyle segments.
The entrepreneurs will also receive mentorship from Kamath, Ananth Narayanan (founder of Mensa Brands), Raj Shamani (content creator) and Kishore Biyani (founder of Future Group).
“Introducing the #WTFFund! Young entrepreneurs under 22 years of age can now grab the opportunity to secure funding and receive mentorship in the home, fashion, beauty or lifestyle sectors,” announced Nikhil Kamath on X.
Eligible entrepreneurs can be part of the programme, which is accepting entries till October 16. Reportedly, the WTF Fund will shortlist two startups that will receive a fund of INR 40 lakh each. It is also said that along with Kamath, the three guests in his latest podcast, will also make investments worth INR 10 lakh each in the winning startups.
While mentioning the motive behind the programme, Kamath in his latest Podcasts shared, “We normally do charity with every episode. We thought we’ll do it differently as an experiment this time. We will pick an entrepreneur (under the age of 22) in either fashion, cosmetics or any of the industries we discussed who would otherwise not have got funding and we will fund them by virtue of this podcast,” said Kamath, during the episode 11 titled ‘TF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand’ while talking to Shamani, Narayanan and Biyani.
He also added, “These guys (entrepreneurs aged under 22) typically find it much harder to raise funding. They’re in the journey of 0 to 1 essentially.”
Furthermore, the Zerodha co-founder also mentioned that the idea to set up a fund for young entrepreneurs was inspired by the story of the young founders of Zepto – Aadit Palecha and Kaivalya Vohra.
“In the last episode, we had the Zepto guys and the one thing they said that was so incredibly cool, is they got a grant of INR 40 lakh from a fund when they were 18 and that’s what helped them build Zepto,” Kamath added.
