Your praise is well warranted. This program is incredible and should serve as a model for other student run funds nationwide. The experience that they receive is unmatched in an educational environment. Our firm has the opportunity to work with the fund on occasion, and have even hired students graduating after having been a part of the fund. They are motivated, well educated students with a great deal of promise.

The funds were not raised entirely by the students. The University's Provost Office (or whomever is in charge) helped with their connections and credibility to get the VC firms on board.

If it was left to the students themselves what credentials/experience do they have to raise $18M?

I have a good level of familiarity with the fund raising process. It's not tic-tac-toe.

:)

Marc

Marc -- Sure, having been around the institutional fund-raising circuit for many years I didn't imagine the students did it alone. Nevertheless, the idea that students were able to pull this together, with assistance, is still impressive.

Paul, you write about stuff that no one else even thinks of, so I enjoy reading your blog, now on almost daily basis.

I can say that their accomplishmen is indeed impressive, to encourage more universities to copy the model and to encourage the students to succeed with the fund.

However, what would have really impressed me is if the students had raised $1.8M from friends and family all by themselves. I believe that would have taught them a lot more about what young/early stage entrepreneurs go through.

If you get a chance, I would love for you to check out the just-updated version of our grassroots attempt to define the vision for --and get key "business geeks" on board with-- a geek-run, geek-funded VC fund.

Thanks for all the great posts. You should make a book of these mini posts.

Marc

I appreciate the commentary quite a bit. I actually can comment on this from personal experience. I was one of the founders of the University Venture Fund (UVF) and participated in launching the organization. I've since gone on to start my own venture funded company.

To set things straight, the UVF actually raised nearly ~$700k from individual investors early on. As we moved into more seriously assessing deals, we realized that we needed a bigger fund to earn out a bigger enough management fee to fund operations. As such, we decided to formalize a fund (as was announced in the recent press release).

In regard to the comment that the students didn't actually raise the fund, that's only slightly true. Students were heavily involved in all of the fundraising process - making pitches, negotiating terms, and reviewing term sheets and investment documents. Jared Hutchings, the Managing Director and fellow founder of the UVF(founded it when he was a student), was the main non-student force behind the fundraising. Other than Jared, a few others played roles in the process.

Students also actively manage the LP's of the fund. I was recently asked to come to an LP meeting to talk about how the experience helped me in starting my company and students made presentations on portfolio companies and answered questions from the LP's.

All in all, I felt that the experience that the UVF provided me has been critical to my success thus an entrepreneur. There's certainly many things about entrepreneurship that you can't learn except by doing, but with that said, the UVF provides a framework for students to get deep knowledge in fundraising, venture capital, and entrepreneurship that, in my opinion, isn't offered to the same level at any student related program anywhere else world.

I appreciate the dialogue and you giving me the opportunity to chime in.

Nate