New Delhi, April 7 -- Harshavardhan Chauhaan, the chief marketing officer of Trident Group, has launched the Young Entrepreneurs Fund (YEF) to support retail and D2C (direct-to-consumer) startups. The fund has a target corpus of $10 million (Rs 85.8 crore).

Chauhaan, who is in the process of obtaining an AlF CAT-3 license from SEBI for the fund, will use proceeds from his new book, #NCAYB (Nobody Cares About Your Brand), to fuel the fund. Additionally, he is bringing together a group of ex-founders, India-focused family offices, and sovereign-aligned institutional backers to support the initiative.

"While the CAT-3 structure offers flexibility, YEF is a pure private-stage mission. Our mandate is to fund pre-market Bharat-first innovations that need conviction capital, not listed company instruments. We may retain equity post-IPO in rare future cases, but we're not trading-we're building long-term IP," said Chauhaan.

The fund is aiming for its first close by mid-May.

YEF will focus exclusively on idea-to-early prototype stage ventures. "This is where conviction, character, and clarity matter more than traction. We back founders solving real Bharat-first problems with IP, not hype. Think of it as India's own Y Combinator meets DeepTech Builder Lab-with a national mission lens," said Chauhaan.

The ticket sizes will range from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 2 crore across three formats: idea-stage grants of approximately Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, early prototype checks between Rs 75 lakh and Rs 1.5 crore, and select moonshot follow-ons of Rs 2 crore or more.

The fund has an eight-year lifecycle, with an option to extend it for an additional two more years. Its key focus areas include deep tech, clean mobility, agri-infrastructure, and health tech. In deep tech, YEF plans to support startups in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced robotics.

In clean energy, it will back solutions in renewable energy generation, green infrastructure, and carbon-neutral technologies. Additionally, rural platforms are a significant focus, with investments planned in agri-tech tools, rural fintech ecosystems, and digital literacy programs. YEF plans to build a cohort of 35-50 founders in its first round.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.