8 Weeks
BuildUpVenture CapitalLab
25 Students
July 12 – Sep 13
5–6 Per Team
8 Weeks
25 Students
July 12 – Sep 13
5–6 Per Team
What is the BuildUp Venture Capital Lab?
The BuildUp Venture Capital Lab is an 8-week program that gives high school students the curriculum, mentors, and tools to kickstart their career in finance.
Built in collaboration with HireVC, the competitive fellowship that has placed analysts at Blume Ventures, Peak XV, Speciale Invest, Titan Capital, and Accel. The first five weeks involve structured learning. In the final three weeks, you run a student fund where you evaluate company profiles, conduct due diligence, sit in investment committees, and build a portfolio that you present to a panel of VC professionals.
The Program Structure
The program runs across two phases. The first five weeks build the analytical foundation. The final three weeks, you put it to work.
Phase 1 Learning & Investment Foundations
Weeks 1–5 · Saturday & Sunday · 2 hours per session
Week 1: Foundations of Venture Capital & Startup Ecosystems
How investing works, the evolution of venture capital, how startup ecosystems are structured, the investor mindset, and how startups operate differently from traditional businesses.
Week 2: Business Models, Markets & Competitive Analysis
Business model thinking, scalability, customer demand evaluation, market sizing, competitive landscape analysis, and how to identify high-potential opportunities.
Week 3: Founders, Growth & Startup Funding
Evaluating founders and execution capability, growth levers, network effects, startup scaling, funding stages from pre-seed to Series B, and how VC firms think about risk and portfolio construction.
Week 4: Valuations & Investment Decision-Making
Startup valuations, profitability metrics, retention analysis, CAC, and the frameworks investors use when deciding where to put capital.
Week 5: Research, Investment Thesis & Future Trends
Startup analysis frameworks, founder and market research, investor psychology, emerging industries, ethical investing, and building a credible investment thesis.
Phase 2 The Fund
Weeks 6–8 · Teams of 5–6
Week 6–8: Fund Formation, Due Diligence & Portfolio Construction
In Phase 2, your team comes together to form a fund and you define everything from the name and your investment thesis, to establishing the kind of companies you want to back. From there, you evaluate a set of company profiles, running each one through due diligence and debating them in investment committee sessions before making allocation decisions as a team.
By the end of the three weeks, your fund produces a report that captures everything from the thesis you built, the companies you evaluated, the decisions you made, and the reasoning behind them. The program closes with a demo day where each fund presents their portfolio and investment rationale to a panel of VC professionals.
Program Outcomes
Investment Thesis:A 30–40 page investment thesis report, capturing your fund's mandate, the companies you evaluated, the decisions you made, and the reasoning behind every call.
Outcomes
BuildUp student admits
Our students progress to globally respected universities through deliverable-focused, world-class projects, rigorous mentorship, and unique profiles.
Brown University
NYU
Carnegie Mellon University
UC Berkeley
Duke University
UCLA
Harvard University
University College London
King’s College London
University of Oxford
London Business School
University of Warwick
LSE
USC
NUS
About HireVC
The VC Fellowship by HireVC is one of South Asia's most respected VC fellowship programs, with a highly selective acceptance rate, alumni placed at Blume Ventures, Speciale Invest, Peak XV, Titan Capital, and Accel, and a network of mentors drawn from the top tier of the startup ecosystem.
The BuildUp VC Lab brings that same curriculum, mentor network, and methodology to high school students for the first time.
Fellows Participated
0+Students and founders trained through the HireVC fellowship network.
Active Angel Investors
0+Mentors and investors from funds actively deploying capital.
Country Alumni Footprint
0+Alumni building careers across global startup ecosystems.
Events
0+Workshops, demo days, and community sessions nationwide.
The Mentors
Mentored by the venture capitalists from some of the most active funds
Most programs teach you about venture capital through case studies and textbooks. BuildUp VC Lab is built in partnership with HireVC, South Asia's leading VC fellowship, which means your mentors are General Partners, Managing Partners, and investment directors at funds that have collectively deployed hundreds of millions of dollars.
When you present your investment thesis at Demo Day, the panel judging your work will be the same calibre of people you'd pitch to if you were actually raising a fund.
Meet our Mentors
Pranav Bafna
Associate, Incofin Investment Management
Divyanshu Bali
Former Investment Team, Redesign Health
Anupam Pandey
Impact Investments, Next Bharat Ventures
Shobhankita Reddy
Former Investment Team, Speciale Invest
Vrinda Gupta
Investment Team, Titan Capital
Our Student Community
Schools across six continents
Our students come from schools across six continents. When you join the lab, you are working alongside an incredible competitive group of peers.
Akshara International
Thomas Jefferson high School
Riverside Academy - Qatar
Oakridge International
International Academy
Future Kids School Hyderabad
Billabong High International
Vidya Valley School
Shri Ram School
Pestalozzi Education Center
Mahindra International School
Heritage International School
CNS Pune
Woodstock School
The Doon School
Prudence School
MIT Vishwashanti Gurukul
Indus Pune
Enko International Schools
BD Somani
TISB
San Mateo High School
Pathways World School
Kodaikanal International School
Gems Modern Academy - Abu Dhabi
Bishops School Pune
Vidyagyan School
Stonehill International School
Pine View School
Mahindra United World College
Indus Bangalore
Cygnus World School
FAQs
Frequently asked questions.
Find the answers
The program is open to high school students in Grades 9–12 from anywhere in the world. No prior finance, economics, or business experience is required — only genuine curiosity about how startups and investing work, and the commitment to engage seriously with the material.
No. Phase 1 starts from first principles. Every student, regardless of background, goes through the same five-week foundation before the simulation begins. What matters more than prior knowledge is whether you're willing to think rigorously and defend your reasoning.
Yes. There is no in-person component. All sessions, mentor check-ins, investment committee meetings, and the final demo day happen online. You need a laptop and a reliable internet connection.
Sessions are held for 2 hours over the weekend. Beyond that, the work is self-directed. Most students spend an additional 3–5 hours per week depending on the phase, with Phase 2 requiring more time as due diligence and investment committee preparation intensifies.
It is a structured written document analysing a real startup of your choice — covering the market opportunity, business model, founder evaluation, competitive landscape, financials, and your investment recommendation. It is produced during Phase 1 and refined through the simulation. It is a concrete, reviewable piece of work you can use in university applications and interviews.
Yes. A structured investment memo, a live simulation record, and a direct recommendation letter from a working VC professional are uncommon credentials at the high school level. Beyond those outputs, you leave with a concrete analytical experience and a clear narrative for your personal statement.
The startup pitches in Phase 2 come from early-stage founders — real companies at the idea or pre-seed stage. You will not be evaluating fictional case studies. The due diligence, uncertainty, and decision-making pressure are real.
BuildUp students have been admitted to Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Oxford, UCL, LSE, NUS, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, USC, Brown, and more, with over $21 million in scholarships across the network. Profiles that demonstrate analytical depth and real-world engagement consistently perform well at universities that value intellectual seriousness over activity breadth.
It is particularly strong for students applying to economics, business, finance, or entrepreneurship tracks — anywhere the ability to evaluate ideas and understand how capital moves is relevant. The analytical frameworks and structured thinking you develop apply broadly across disciplines.
July 2026 cohort
Program starts July 12
Start your application.
Join a selective cohort of high school students learning venture capital with mentors from active funds — in partnership with HireVC. Complete the application in about five minutes.
Tuition
$1,950 USD
Duration
8 weeks
Capacity
30 students
Dates
July 12 – Sep 13
Scholarships
We have limited need and merit based scholarships available.
What you will walk away with
- 1
30 page investment memo
- 2
Certificate & Recommendation Letter from a HireVC mentor
- 3
Competitive narrative for college applications
Apply Now
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. You will hear back within two weeks of submitting a complete application.