What began as a personal inconvenience for a college student has quickly evolved into one of the most promising student-led startups to emerge from Nagpur.
When Avika Khemuka found herself leaving behind nearly Rs.15,000 worth of usable goods at the end of a semester due to the lack of a reliable way to sell them within campus, she decided to build a solution. The result is CampusSwap, a peer-to-peer marketplace designed exclusively for verified college students. It is the first such startup in the country’s student market and is completely free for onboarded users.
In just 73 days of active outreach, CampusSwap has crossed the milestone of 1,000 verified users—achieved without spending a single rupee on advertising. Instead, the platform’s growth has been driven entirely through grassroots engagement in college WhatsApp groups and QR code-based registration drives conducted directly on campus.
Founded by Nagpur-based Khemuka, now a final-year B.Tech student in Computer Science at SRM University, Haryana, the platform addresses a long-standing gap in India’s student ecosystem—the lack of a trusted, closed marketplace where students can safely buy and sell second-hand goods within their own academic communities. CampusSwap enables users to trade a wide range of items, including engineering instruments, medical equipment, electronics, hostel furniture, appliances, cycles, and sports gear. To maintain trust and exclusivity, every user is required to upload a valid college ID, which is verified using an OCR-based system powered by Google Cloud Vision API.
The startup secured second place at Symbiosis SIT Tank 2.0 in Nagpur and was also showcased at Startup Mahakumbh in Delhi, where the team engaged with investors and mentors from across the country.
CampusSwap is registered under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) as part of the Central Government’s Startup India initiative.
Notably, the venture is led by an all-women founding team—an aspect that has attracted attention within the startup ecosystem and among potential investors.
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