When Udit Jain, a 21-year-old Yale University student, walked into a campus coffee lounge late one night in 2016, all he wanted was a strawberry, Greek-yogurt smoothie. He walked out with what became his first venture capital investment.
In the cafe, he ran into Kevin Tan, who was busy at a laptop writing code for an app he was building to alert students to timely restaurant deals around campus. The two discussed the idea—and kept in close touch over the next few months. When Mr. Jain joined a student-run venture capital fund backed by First Round Capital early in 2017, one of the first things he did was persuade his new colleagues to invest in Mr. Tan’s app idea, which has since evolved into a food pickup service.
