Australia’s youngest VCs raise $1.5M of a $2.5M fund to back fellow student founders

NextGen Ventures, a student-led VC fund founded by 23-year-old Mitchell Hughes and 22-year-old Jerry X’Lingson, has raised $1.5 million of its targeted $2.5 million fund to back student-led startups across Australia. 

Backed by heavyweights including Airtree’s Craig Bair, Blackbird founders Rick Baker and Niki Scevak, Rampersand's Paul Naphtali, Chris Gillings from Cut Through Venture and Ed Hooper (GXE), the fund is the first of its kind in the country. It’s built by students, for funding students.

"Mitchell and Jerry represent a new generation of change, and share the mission of creating a better environment for student founders to express their ambitions on the world stage. They are attracted to the hungry, not the proven, as so many of the great changemakers are at the beginning, and Rick and I are excited to invest and support NextGen," said Niki Scevak, founder and partner at Blackbird Ventures.

NextGen’s mission is simple: identify ambitious student founders before anyone else does and write their first cheque, which will be around $70,000. 

The team has already made its first bet, investing in AI process automation startup Fluency, founded by a Swinburne graduate and an RMIT student.

A quiet revolution is unfolding on Australia’s campuses. Since 2012, 90 student-founded, VC-backed startups have collectively raised $1.2 billion. This includes generational global businesses like Atlassian, founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar at UNSW, and more recent breakthroughs such as the Ferguson brothers’ blockchain unicorn, Immutable.

However, young Australian founders remain systemically unnoticed and underserved. Only 8% of VCs believe the industry truly understands the investment requirements of student-founders. Meanwhile, Australia’s culture of tall poppy syndrome continues to quietly chip away at our most ambitious youth.

“For the last decade, the ambitions of countless young Australians have been suppressed. So they quietly flee to Silicon Valley not just for the capital, but for its unapologetic culture of pursuing what one cares about. It's time to develop our own culture that encourages fearless ambition at the grassroots, and it starts by growing a garden of tall poppies," said X’Lingson.

While most VCs operate at arm’s length from university ecosystems, NextGen has 20 student scouts embedded across seven campuses nationwide, giving it access to grassroots deal flow and early insight into who’s building what.

“Our ambition is to build a generational venture firm that doesn’t just invest — it uplifts,” said X’Lingson. “Australia’s student founders are ready to lead on the global stage. We’re here to make sure they’re seen, funded, and supported from day one.”

The fund is expected to close by the end of the year. Learn more at nextgenventures.com.au.

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