Building a foundation for tech startups

In 2008, Krishna Gupta '09 launched Romulus Capital, a venture capital seed firm, out of his MIT dorm room, scraping together $850,000 to invest in tech startups launched by his classmates. Today, Romulus controls $150 million in funds and other assets, having just raised a new fund of $75 million in June. Now Romulus plans to fund 20 new startups, adding to its existing portfolio of 30 startups, many of which are MIT spinouts. That's not bad for someone completely unfamiliar with the venture capital industry when he launched Romulus as an MIT junior studying materials science and management. "I knew nothing about venture capital, nothing of investing," Gupta says.