GC Venture Fellows is the 2024 relaunch of General Catalyst’s decade‑old Rough Draft Ventures student fund. The new fellowship keeps the original mission—empowering student investors to be the first institutional believers in collegiate founders—while expanding the program beyond the United States into Canada and the United Kingdom. Twenty Fellows are selected each academic year to scout, diligence and recommend USD 25 000 pre‑seed investments on behalf of General Catalyst’s seed team.  

The fellowship opens with a three‑day kickoff summit at GC’s Boston office where partners unpack the firm’s thesis‑driven approach to AI, fintech and healthcare. Fellows then return to their campuses and operate as a distributed fund: they hold weekly remote deal‑review calls, collaborate in a private Slack workspace and leverage standard founder‑friendly SAFE documents to close deals in days.  

Curriculum is “learn by doing” and reinforced through monthly masterclasses covering term‑sheet mechanics, market sizing, founder reference‑checking and DEI best practices. Each Fellow also receives a GC partner mentor and access to the firm’s research portal and expert‑in‑residence network.  

Since the original program’s inception in 2012 the student fund has backed more than 275 companies—including Notion, WHOOP, Bowery Farming and Snackpass—raising over USD 4 billion in follow‑on capital. The rebranded GC Venture Fellows aims to double that impact by broadening geographic reach and layering in a new non‑dilutive Founder Grant to catalyze idea‑stage builders.

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