Mesa School of Business, a business school aimed at creating startup leaders, has raised Rs 34 crore ($4 million) in a funding round led by venture capital and growth-equity investment firm Elevation Capital.

The fundraise featured participation from angel investors including Kunal Shah and Vidit Aatrey, the founders of fintech player Cred and social commerce platform Meesho, respectively, among others.

The business school plans to utilise the fresh funds for building a cutting-edge, hands-on and application-based curriculum, designed and delivered in partnership with startup leaders and potential future employers for a founding cohort of just 60 hand-picked students, it said in a statement.

“We believe startups will be responsible for creating the bulk of the new aspirational jobs in India, and yet there isn’t a B-school focused on preparing candidates to be successful in these leadership roles. This gap inspired us to start Mesa School,” said the founding team of Mesa School of Business.

Mesa was founded by Ankit Agarwal, a former Urban Company executive, and Varun Limaye, a former Amazon executive. Mukul Arora, managing partner, Elevation Capital, said, “We believe there is a clear opportunity for creating new age, outcome-focused higher-ed institutes in India.”

Mesa claims to be India’s first B-school programme aimed at transforming young professionals by preparing them for the challenges of leadership roles in startups. Elevation Capital, which got rebranded in October 2020, chases investments largely in sectors that include consumer brands, consumer technology, enterprise tech, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and B2B, crypto and Web3, fintech and logistics. It typically invests between $2 million and $75 million in one or more rounds in its portfolio companies.

The VC firm has also bet on startups such as FirstCry,, Makemytrip, Meesho, NoBroker, Spinny, Unacademy and Xpressbees.