Backed by founders of Noise, Libas, and Palo Alto Networks, the international student cohort built real D2C businesses from scratch during a single academic semester in India
Undergraduate students at Tetr College have raised around INR 1 crore in funding and according to Tetr’s claims, this is one of the biggest fundraising initiatives by undergraduate entrepreneurs in the Indian context.
Who Backed Them
The investors in raising the funds were representatives of the various consumer startups in India. Gaurav Khatri, who is CEO and co-founder of Noise, participated in this campaign along with such names as Sidhant Keshwani of Libas and Rajiv Batra, co-founder of Palo Alto Networks, and many others. Such funding was a real business project, not an academic one.
What They Built
The startups mentioned in the funding program work in fields such as food and drinks, beauty, sustainability, health, and household care. Examples include Jhatak, an Indonesian sambal company aimed at Indian consumers; Too Much, a brand of lip oil that hydrates; Lavella, an eco-friendly home care company producing all-in-one washing sheets; and Nothing But, a fruit snack made of 100% fruit without any artificially added elements. Start-up founders operated multiple business provisions like branding, production, distribution, and marketing at the same time as they were studying.
The Broader Tetr Model
The India semester follows the cohort’s first term in Dubai, where students collectively launched 37 ventures generating revenues exceeding AED 120,000. A previous cohort of 110 students from 45 countries launched 61 startups generating over $300,000 in combined revenue. Tetr itself raised $18 million from Owl Ventures and Bertelsmann India Investments earlier this year, and reports an acceptance rate of 2.6%, with students regularly choosing it over admissions from MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and King’s College London.
