Two Stanford students announced Monday that they have raised $2 million for a accelerator program called Breakthrough Ventureswhich aims to fund businesses founded by college students and recent graduates across the country.

Roman Scott and Itbaan Nafi started building the accelerator program after hosting a series of famous Demo Days at Stanford starting in 2024 and decided to expand it after the students achieved success.

“This fundraise turned Breakthrough from a seasonal accelerator into a lifelong partnership with our founders,” Nafi, who is still a master’s candidate at Stanford, told TechCrunch.

Scott received his undergraduate degree from Stanford in 2024 and went on to earn a master’s degree there the following year.

Early last year, the duo tapped Raihan Ahmed to lead the accelerator and then got to work, officially raising funds from the likes of Mayfair and Collide Capital (as well as a slain alumni of the Stanford founder) to support the next generation of AI, health, consumer, deep tech, and sustainability companies. Scott said what sets their accelerator apart is that it was built specifically “for student founders by student founders.”

Student programs like this are nothing new. UC Berkeley offers a similar program called Free Ventures for students seeking pre-seed funding, and MIT has its own Sandbox Innovation Fund. Even Stanford has a few accelerator programs, both run or affiliated with the school, such as StartX, LaunchPad, and Cardinal Ventures.

“Students love how we bring together so many others from different American colleges,” Nafi said of his program, comparing it to Stanford’s Treehacks hackathon.

“The goal of Breakthrough is to fill the funding and opportunity gap that exists in many of these ecosystems because students have historically lacked access to capital and the networks necessary to launch their business activities,” added Scott.

Breakthrough has a hybrid model, with in-person meetups with local powerhouse VC firms, culminating in a Demo Day at Stanford. Those who participate in the program will get access to funding (up to $100,000), compute credits (through Microsoft and the NVIDIA Inception program), legal support, Waymo ride credits, mentorship (from Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana, and others), “with the opportunity to receive a $50,000 follow-on investment at the end of the program,” Nafi.

“We nailed the student-founder experience to a T,” Nafi said. “That’s why we offer the resources that we do and structure the program this way. The students feel like we’ve got it, and that’s because we’re students.”

The duo hopes to deploy the fund over 3 years, aiming to incubate at least 100 companies. Overall, Nafi hopes this fund will help Breakthrough grow into “the hub for Gen-Z entrepreneurship and thought leadership,” especially given the anxiety many young people feel about their economic future.

Applications for the latest cohort are open now.

“We hope that by supporting young entrepreneurs, we will be able to raise as many stories as possible to encourage many more around the world to use the tools and knowledge around them to continue entrepreneurship not only to change their communities, but also to gain economic stability for themselves and their families,” said Nafi.