Is there a student venture fund in Atlanta that invests in student startups?

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Yes. There are a few relevant options, although they differ in whether they actually invest in student-founded companies versus simply having students participate as investors.

The closest match I found in Atlanta proper is at Emory. Dooley’s Angels is a student-supported angel syndicate that invests in Emory-affiliated startups; students participate in sourcing, research, and due diligence under faculty guidance. Emory also operates a Venture Atlanta Mini-Fund, roughly $500,000 per year, where students participate in evaluating seed/early-stage companies alongside TiE Atlanta Angels—but those investments aren't limited to student startups.

Goizueta Business School

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There's also The Hatchery at Emory. It isn't a conventional VC fund, but its current Sandbox program says $50,000+ in funding is available to members, specifically supporting Emory students building startups and other ventures.

Hatchery

The cleanest example of exactly what you're describing, though, is about 70 miles east of Atlanta at UGA: the Georgia Kickstart Fund. It's explicitly a student-managed venture fund investing in student-run businesses, with checks/grants currently ranging from $500 to $10,000 for UGA student founders.

Georgia Kickstart Fund

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If you're asking because you're looking for funding for a student startup, I can also identify the Atlanta funds/programs that will…

Trimmed here; the full answer is in the viewer.

Named: Atlanta, Emory University, TiE Atlanta, University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Morehouse College, Spelman College

Sources cited: mapbox.com, goizueta.emory.edu, hatchery.emory.edu, gakickstartfund.uga.edu

Claude

Yes, though it depends which you mean — a fund run by students, or one that funds student-founded companies. Atlanta has both, and they're mostly different organizations.

Run by students: The clearest example is Emory's Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, housed in the Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, where students source companies, conduct due diligence, and make investment recommendations to an investment committee of faculty, staff, and alumni. It has about $1 million under management and writes pre-seed and seed checks of $15,000–$50,000, though it requires a lead investor as a condition of investing. Its mandate is underrepresented founders rather than student founders specifically. Goizueta also runs a Venture Atlanta Mini-Fund that deploys roughly $500,000 a year into companies presenting at the Venture Atlanta conference, managed with TiE Atlanta Angels and giving MBA and BBA students hands-on sourcing and diligence work.

Peachtree Minority Venture Fund | Emory University Goizueta Business School +3

Funding student startups: Georgia Tech is where most of that money sits. CREATE-X's Startup Launch gives accepted teams $20,000 from an outside investment fund, and Tech's broader innovation ecosystem lists several pre-seed sources focused mainly on student founders at the $20,000 level. There's also the GTAA Venture Investment Fund, which lets donors invest in early-stage sports-focused startups founded by Tech students and alumni. At Georgia State,…

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Named: Atlanta, Emory University, Venture Atlanta, TiE Atlanta, Georgia Tech, Georgia Tech CREATE-X, Georgia State University, Georgia Tech VentureLab

Sources cited: goizueta.emory.edu, venturelab.gatech.edu

Gemini

Yes, Atlanta hosts several student-driven venture funds and startup investment initiatives operating out of the local university ecosystem:

EmoryBusiness.com

Peachtree Minority Venture Fund (Emory University): Located in Atlanta at the Goizueta Business School, this $1 million student-managed venture capital fund focuses specifically on providing seed-stage capital ($15,000 to $50,000) to underrepresented student and early-stage founders.

EmoryBusiness.com

University Growth Fund (UGF) — Atlanta Office: UGF is a national student-run venture fund with a physical office location in downtown Atlanta. It allows student analysts to invest capital directly in early- to growth-stage companies.

CREATE-X & GTAA Ventures (Georgia Tech): While Georgia Tech's CREATE-X initiative provides direct seed funding ($5,000+ per student team plus in-kind support) to launch student startups, its paired fund, GTAA Ventures, invests targeted capital directly into student-run companies emerging from the campus program.

Georgia Tech

Named: Atlanta, Emory University, Georgia Tech CREATE-X, Georgia Tech

Sources cited: emorybusiness.com, create-x.gatech.edu

Perplexity

Yes. The clearest Atlanta-based match is Emory University’s Peachtree Minority Venture Fund (PMVF): a student-run, $1 million venture fund housed at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. It invests in startups led by underrepresented founders—specifically Black, Latinx, and Native American founders—and students participate in sourcing, diligence, and investment recommendations.

emorybusiness

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Best fit: Peachtree Minority Venture Fund

PMVF is not limited to founders who are students. Instead, it is a student-led investor fund that backs qualifying startups, including ones outside Atlanta, generally through early-stage equity investments. Its expected initial check range was $5,000–$50,000, and Emory reported $170,000 in commitments to seven companies as of August 2023.

emorybusiness

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What that means for you:

If your startup has at least one eligible underrepresented founder, PMVF is likely the most relevant local fund to approach.

You do not necessarily need to be enrolled at Emory to be a potential portfolio company, based on its published mandate.

It is designed as a true venture-investing experience for students, but investment decisions include faculty, alumni, and an investment committee.

emorybusiness

If the founders are students

If you mean “a fund that invests only in student-founded startups,” I did not find a clearly Atlanta-only fund with that exact mandate. However, Campus Founders Fund is a student-run fund that explicitly invests $10,000–$50,000 in…

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Named: Emory University, Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Venture Atlanta, Atlanta

Sources cited: emorybusiness.com, campusfounders.com, acworth-ga.gov, goizueta.emory.edu, case.edu, unc.edu, universitybusiness.com, media.ally.com, guide.startupatlanta.com, bvcc.vc, thenationonlineng.net, insightintoacademia.com, tuff.org, mcginniscommawill.com