Cohort 1 included 17 investors (~0.5% accepted) 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 an Investment Analyst at KingsCrowd, empowering individuals to invest in startups confidently through a platform-agnostic suite of products including research, recommendations, data analytics, and financial products
- 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: Joined Balderton Capital (London's top VC firm) an Analyst, and then joined Pi Labs (Europe's most active PropTech VC Fund) as an Investment Associate
- 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: Technology Analyst, Accenture
- Previously Program Manager @ Microsoft
- Bachelors in Computer Science at University of San Francisco
Enterprise Team
Jitendra Kavathekar
After VU: Launched his own fund, Horizon 3 Ventures (H3VC)
- 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: Joined as an VC Associate at DigitalDx Ventures, and then as an VC Associate at Tau Ventures
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 Trilogy, a multi-billion dollar private equity buyout fund focused on enterprise software companies
- VC Blog
- Previously Associate at Amazon
- Venture Capital Analyst, Rockies Venture Club
Jing Liu
After VU: Joined Private Equity Fund, Glen Prairie Capital
- Morgan Stanley, Wealth Management
- MBA student, focused on corporate finance, originally came from China
- 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: Founded LTX VC, and joined Stat Zero's VC investment team
- 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 Strategy Analyst, Oracle
- 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: Joined Visionful, a 500 Startups Portfolio Company, as a Co-Founder & CMO
- 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 Pegasus Technology Ventures, a $1B+ VC fund
- 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
