Harvard Business School Students Launch $1 Million Class Fund to Back Their Own

Seven second-year students at Harvard Business School have launched a first-of-its-kind fund aimed at backing entrepreneurs from their own graduating class — and they’ve already raised $1 million to get started.

The fund, called Twenty25 Ventures, was created by members of HBS’s Class of 2025 to invest in classmate-founded startups over the next decade. Built around a model of “community-based investing,” the fund will automatically back any qualifying venture launched by a 2025 graduate, bypassing traditional selective processes in favor of broader support for their entrepreneurial peers.

“There’s no specific area we’re looking at,” Twenty25 co-founder Insoo Chang tells The Harvard Crimson. “As long as a founder in our class is able to do that, they will get a check.”

AUTOMATIC FUNDING FOR QUALIFIED STARTUPS

The funding initiative, which began organizing in fall 2023, marks the first time HBS students have created a self-organized investment fund to support their classmates. 

However, the idea was partly inspired by similar efforts at peer schools, particularly Stanford Graduate School of Business. Chang tells the Crimson that the Twenty25 team received guidance from founders of Stanford’s 2020 class fund and utilized a platform called Power in Numbers to structure their fund legally as an investment club.

Twenty25 Ventures sets clear and open criteria for founders seeking investment: startups must have a Class of 2025 founder, have raised at least $500,000 in an external round, and have institutional validation from another investor. Companies that meet these standards will automatically receive an investment, with check sizes ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.

The fund does not plan to back nonprofits, academic research, grant proposals, or search funds, according to its website. Beyond capital, participating founders gain access to an advisory board of HBS alumni and venture capital professionals who can offer mentorship, fundraising guidance, and potential introductions to additional investors.

In comments to the Crimson, Yuval Efrat, another Twenty25 co-founder, describes the advisory board as a “win-win” setup. Advisers get early connections to promising HBS founders, while entrepreneurs receive access to valuable networks and expertise.

“(Founders) get their classmates on the cap table willing to help them with everything they need,” Efrat says, “and (they) get that list of advisers that are willing to help them either with advice on the fundraise, maybe invest themselves, or even connect them to other VCs that might be interested.”

BUILT BY THE CLASS, FOR THE CLASS

In a departure from typical venture funds, Twenty25 Ventures operates without management fees or carried interest. Any member of the HBS Class of 2025 can contribute financially to the fund. The fund’s advisory board of nearly a dozen venture capital leaders and HBS alumni includes Bryan Kim, partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Alex Kayyal, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, Arjun Chopra, partner at Floodgate, Sara Choi, partner at Wing VC, and Kristie Han, principal at Canapi Ventures.

Chang emphasized to The Crimson that the strength of the HBS network made the fundraising effort unusually smooth. “Raising capital — fundraising — should be incredibly difficult,” he says. “But because we have so much confidence from our classmates, it hasn’t been too difficult.”

The fund’s founders hope it will create a lasting foundation of support for future HBS entrepreneurs — and perhaps inspire a new tradition within the school’s famously competitive environment. Plans are already underway to replicate the model for the HBS Class of 2026, Chang says, as enthusiasm for community-driven investing grows within the business school.

“The community, alumni, professors, and classmates have been all in, super engaged, and they want to help build this together,” he says.

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