Venture Capital has long run on warm introductions and closed networks. Nikita Thakrar decided that was a problem worth solving. As founder and CEO of Included VC, she has built the first fully funded global program that helps people from overlooked communities break into the industry. Today, its Fellows come from more than 140 countries and 700 cities.
What Included VC Does:
Included VC runs a fully funded Fellowship, often called a venture capital MBA. It covers fund mechanics, deal sourcing, due diligence, term sheets, and exits. Fellows learn directly from working investors, not just from theory.
A consortium of serious names backs the program. Notion Capital, Creandum, Seedcamp, BITKRAFT, Daphni, HV Capital, Mouro Capital, Mangrove Capital, KAYA VC, K Fund, M12, which is Microsoft’s venture fund, HSBC Ventures, the European Investment Fund, and Wilson Sonsini all support it. That backing pays for access most people never get.
The results are strong. Included VC has supported nearly 100 Fellows. More than 80 percent of those actively looking have secured roles in venture capital. Many now hire and mentor the next group coming through.
From Imperial to Included:
Before Included VC, Nikita led entrepreneurship work at Imperial College London. She backed deep science startups across water, new materials, robotics, energy, and medtech. That work helped accelerate more than 2,000 people, and she also ran the Women in STEM program there.
Earlier, she worked in global operations at Startupbootcamp. She studied economics at the University of Birmingham and later at University College London. Put together, she has spent more than a decade close to founders and early teams. That history shows in how Included VC is built. It is practical, not academic.
Expanding into Africa:
In 2025, Nikita launched a dedicated Included VC Africa Fellowship. The goal is to help new talent enter the wider investment ecosystem, with a five-year vision of investors across all 54 African countries.
The push got bigger in 2026. In April, the team introduced a new Africa Investor Fellowship at the AVCA conference in Nairobi. It is powered by FSD Africa and FMO. The pilot runs from July to December 2026, with a first cohort drawn from regional capital providers and partner funds before it opens to a wider audience.
Recognition and Reach:
The work keeps earning attention. Nikita won the 2025 Novi Awards Disruptor and Innovator of the Year, a nod to how she has changed who gets into venture capital. Back in 2021, she was named to Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35.
She was also named to the Obama Foundation Leaders Europe cohort for 2024 to 2025. She spoke at London Tech Week 2025. On top of Included VC, she created RISEInVC, a global summit focused on underrepresented communities in investing.
If you follow the people we cover in our Women in Tech section, her name keeps coming up for one reason. She turns talk about access into programs that ship.
What Nikita Thakrar Built:
Diversity in venture capital is still thin. Most decisions about which startups get funded sit with a narrow group of people. That shapes which ideas reach the market and which never do.
Nikita Thakrar is changing who sits at that table. Her bet is simple. Talent is everywhere. Access is not. Included VC closes that gap one Fellow at a time, and the Africa work shows she is thinking in continents, not just cohorts.
For founders and operators, the takeaway is clear. The next wave of investors will look different from the last one. People like Nikita are the reason. And if you care about startups and the people building them, her model is worth watching closely.
