Cohort 1 included 17 investors (selected out of 3,200+ applications, ~0.5% acceptance rate) that formed five deal sourcing teams: Big Data, Consumer, Enterprise, Marketplaces, and Robotics. Cohort 1 sourced over 850+ companies and selected 4 companies to invest in.
Cohort 1 Deal Sourcing Teams
Big Data Team
Taylor Hurst
After VU: Joined as an Investment Associate @ Esports Venture Capital Fund - Konvoy
- Previously an Analyst @ Rockies Venture Club
- Arizona State University, BS
Oluwaseyi Olaleye
After VU: Went back to Stanford University to finish undergrad
- Co-Founder, MookieDough
- Previously Summer Analyst @ Private Equity Fund - Concentric Equity Partners
- Graduating 2019 From Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering
Francis Vu
After VU: Joined as a Venture Fellow at Venture University and interviewing with venture capital and private equity funds
- Currently learning Data Analytics in Python, SQL, and Machine Learning
- Previously a Private Equity Analyst @ Pacific Oak and investment experience at a family office in real estate
Consumer Team
Daniel Salzner
After VU: Received an offer to do an MBA at London Business School, joined as a Venture Fellow at Venture University, and started working at TrueAI / TypeGenie, an AI powered writing platform
- Previously Venture Capital Intern at Picus Capital, Strategy Consulting Intern at Monitor Deloitte, Financial Analyst Intern at Goldman Sachs, Investment Intern at Invest UK
- Soon to be certified skydiver, aspiring wingsuiter, heli-skier
Ahmana Tarin
After VU: Joined as a Venture Fellow at Venture University, and is looking to pursue business development roles
- Previously Program Manager @ Microsoft
- Bachelors in Computer Science at University of San Francisco
Enterprise Team
Jitendra Kavathekar
After VU: Developed his investment fund thesis and is raising his own venture capital fund.
- Managing Director & Co-Founder, Global Accenture Ventures - Open Innovation Fund
- Board Member, Silicon Valley Forum
- Previously at Yahoo, Motorola, Palm, Sun Microsystems, and HP
Sonal Panda
After VU: Went back to Wharton Business School to finish MBA, continues to angel invest, and is looking to potentially raise a seed fund focused on Healthcare
Angel investor in real estate tech and healthcare
Finishing MBA at Wharton, majoring in Health Care Management & Finance, where she was awarded the merit-based Kaiser Fellowship
Previously worked on multi-billion dollar global M&As for a $40B conglomerate in India
Matthew Kol
After VU: Joined a multi-billion dollar private equity buyout fund, Trilogy, focused on enterprise software companies
- VC Blog
- Previously Associate at Amazon
- Venture Capital Analyst, Rockies Venture Club
Jing Liu
After VU: Received a job offer to join Morgan Stanley in Wealth Management while finishing MBA. Actively interviewing with venture capital and private equity funds.
- MBA student, focused on corporate finance, originally came from China, soon to be working at Morgan Stanley.
- Financial journalist: Interviewed nearly 100 economists, entrepreneurs, and politicians within 2 years;
- Fintech Operator: Increased the number of users by 4 million and the transaction volume by $4 billion within 1 year
Marketplaces Team
Sergio Marrero
After VU: Joined as a Principal at Venture University
- TEDx Princeton University, "The Degree Is Dead"
- Corporate experience at Teach For America, Deloitte, Pepsico, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Gillette
- Harvard Business School, MBA
- Harvard Kennedy School, MPP
Andrew Van Nest
After VU: Joined as an Investment Associate at Blumberg Capital
- Business Development & Strategy at Ellation
- Associate - Technology at Silicon Valley Bank
- Investment Banking Analyst at William Blair
- Analyst at Point 72 Asset Management
- Basketball Player at Harvard Crimson Men's Basketball Team - First Harvard Men’s Basketball team to reach the NCAA tournament since 1946
- Harvard University, BS
- Boston College, MS
Michael Siegel
After VU: Joined as an Analyst at Venture University
- Previously worked at VentureSouth, a network of 250+ angel investors based in Greenville, SC
- Worked as an archaeologist at the Horvat Kur digsite in Israel
- Studied at Wofford College before going to get an MBA in Entrepreneurship at Clemson University
Farshad Yousefi
After VU: Received an offer to join a Startup Studio
- Born in Iran, raised in Bay Area, received bachelor’s degree in Finance from University of San Diego in 2016
- Founder & CEO of Cravoo
- Work closely with the Founder and CEO of Alluxo to support accelerating business development and go-to-market strategies
Robotics Team
Kaylan Agarwal
After VU: Went on to undergrad at DePaul University
- Recently graduated high school having taken 17 college courses and achieved a 4.0 GPA
- Looking to pursue a VC internship every semester while in college
Carter Boisfontaine
After VU: Joined an an Investment Analyst at Fenox Venture Capital
- VC Blog: TheBoisfonBlog.com
- Previously Research Analyst at Venture Fund Canyon Creek Capital
Studied Business & Digital Entrepreneurship at USC, where he co-founded two companies
Iris Mok
After VU: Continues to angel invest & joined as a Venture Fellow at Venture University
- Managing Patent Council at Intel for 9+ years
- Angel Investor @ Bay Angels & 37 Angels
- Over 15 years as an engineer and lawyer
