Romulans set phasers to ‘kick-ass’ in Cambridge

Romulus Capital, a venture capital firm founded out of MIT in 2008, has closed its $50m early-stage venture capital seed fund. The money was raised by investors from the US, Western Europe, Russia, South Asia, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
In a unique development for the venture capital industry, investors in the fund are all individuals and no institutions. It marks Romulus Capital’s second fund, following its $1m fund which it used to invest in companies such as Ginger.io, a company based on MIT research and focussing on big data analysis for the health care industry. Romulus will invest in a further 20 to 25 companies with their latest fund, with individual investments ranging from $50,000 to $500,000.
Romulus Capital was founded by Krishna Gupta (pictured), now 26, while he was still an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His intent was to build technology businesses out of both the MIT and the Harvard ecosystems.
Romulus was one of the first firms to invest at the early seed stage and is structured to partner closely with entrepreneurs on strategy, and operational and sales objectives. The firm refers to its MIT roots as the basis for its DNA of building a company rather than betting on it. The firm has so far successfully resisted the temptation of basing its decisions on investment formulas that spread risk and play the odds of success.
Krishna Gupta, founder and managing partner, said: “We want to work with companies to be their first institutional partner. If you are a startup, you get hit by a storm every day. You have to be able to weather it. We want to grow the largest seed fund in Boston and help grow kick-ass billion-dollar companies.”