Harvard based Xfund, a venture group that focuses on graduate startups closed its $100 million second fund Thursday.

The fund, previously known as the Harvard Experiment Fund, is a joint venture between NEA, Breyer Capital, Accel Partners and Polaris Partners, with advice but not control coming from Harvard University.

Xfund focuses on investing in early stage startups that have a “grounding in the liberal arts,” claiming that graduates in this area “make more insightful innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Since it began operations in 2012, over 3,500 founding teams from around the world have sought Xfund’s help, and the first fund of $10 million funded five startups:

• Kensho, a global analytics firm for markets based in Cambridge, MA.
• Ravel Law, a San Francisco, CA based legal search tool
• Philo, a Cambridge, MA based TV and DVR mobile service
• Zumper, an apartment search site based in San Francisco, and
• Rest Devices, creating smart baby monitors from Boston, MA.

“When we founded Xfund three years ago, it was an experiment to bring the nation’s top venture capital resources to the staggering talent that had grown up in university towns,” Patrick S. Chung, General Partner said in a statement. “The experiment is working: our founders have access to decades of company-building success and to rare intellectual firepower in these universities. We think the most exceptional founders have technical talent rooted in a liberal arts background – so we seek to invest in individuals with this experience and potential.”

Xfund’s investment advisory board consists of Harry Weller, General Partner at NEA; Jim
Breyer, Founder/CEO of Breyer Capital; Ping Li, Partner at Accel Partners; and Peter Morris, Founder/Managing Partner of Morris Investments. Xfund’s advisors include Cherry Murray,  Dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Professor Harry Lewis;  Professor Doug Melton; Professor David Edwards; Gordon Jones, Director of the Harvard Innovation Lab; Ryley Reynolds (ex officio), President Harvard Student Agencies; and Perry Hewitt, Harvard’s Chief Digital Officer.