当今新一代的年轻创业者的大学寝室就是前辈们创业时的车库。因此，毫不奇怪，一些风险投资公司已聘请学生“星探”在大学校园内搜寻有前途的初创企业。

    但迄今为止，还没有风险投资公司授权学生做实际的投资决定。首轮资本公司（First Round Capital）是一个例外，它已承诺向大学生寝室基金（The Dorm Room Fund，简称DRF）出资50万美元。

    具体的运作方式是：首轮资本公司会在费城地区的大学聘请8名在校学生，负责搜集和投资由在校学生或新近毕业学生创立的初创企业。投资不限行业，通常投资额为1万-2.5万美元。

    首轮资本公司合伙人乔什•科佩尔曼一开始会担任大学生寝室基金投资委员会的成员，但他的目标是最终实现该机构的自立和自治。这意味着这些学生未来需要筹集外部资本，挑选他们（毕业后）的继任者。

    科佩尔曼在一篇博客中写到：

    现在用较少的钱就可以创建一家公司，但它并不意味着完全不需要钱。而且，学生群体已经承担着五位数的贷款用于支付学费，他们要找到、并获得追加资本通常都很难。朋友和家庭往往已经捉襟见肘，而且大多数情况下都已竭尽所能减轻在校大学生的负担。另一方面，我们可以看到很多非常出色的企业孵化器和加速器的增长——但它们通常都要求学生退学（或从大学“休学”）。而且，传统的风投家不会开出2.5万美元的支票为在读学生的想法提供资金。很多创业者都说过：“筹集最初的2.5万美元，难度远远大于后来的200万美元”。

    科佩尔曼补充说，如果费城的这个试点项目取得成功，他希望能把它推广到其他城市。

    首轮资本公司承诺出资的50万美元将来自其第四只基金，这只基金最近在筹集了1.35亿美元资本后刚刚封闭。

    译者：早稻米

    The dorm room is for today's generation of young entrepreneurs what the garage was to their forefathers. So it's not surprising that several venture capital firms have hired student "scouts" to patrol campuses for promising new start-ups.

    But, until now, no venture capital firm had empowered students to make actual investment decisions. The exception to that rule is First Round Capital, which has committed $500,000 to what it's calling The Dorm Room Fund.

    Here's how it works: First Round will hire a team of eight current students at Philadelphia-area universities, who will be expected to source and invest in startups founded by current students or recent graduates. No parameters on company sector, with typical investment sizes of between $10,000 and $25,000.

    First Round partner Josh Kopelman will initially serve on the DRF investment committee, but his goal is for the effort to eventually be self-sustaining and self-managed. That means that the students will be asked to raise outside capital, and also pick their own successors (upon graduation).

    In a blog post, Kopelman wrote:

    Just because it takes less capital to build a company now, doesn't mean it doesn't take any. And, for a student population already taking out five figure loans to pay for school, finding and obtaining that additional capital is often extremely difficult. Friends and family are usually stretched thin, and in most cases, already do whatever they can to ease the burden on their college relatives. At the same time, we've seen the growth of many wonderful incubators and accelerators – but those often require a student to drop out (or take a "leave of absence" from college). And traditional venture capitalists are not optimized to write $25K checks to fund a student's idea while they are still in school. We've heard from several entrepreneurs claiming that it was "much harder to raise our first $25,000 then our next $2 million."

    Kopelman adds that if the Philadelphia pilot program is successful, then he hopes to bring the program to other cities.

    First Round's $500,000 commitment will come from its fourth fund, which recently closed with $135 million in capital commitments.