Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Day 1: First find, University Venture Fund

The Eccles School of Business has a special program called University Venture Fund. UVF is a student-run private equity fund that began in 2004 and raised $18 million from investors who are limited partners, meaning they depend on the work of the students to select investments that deliver a fair return on their money.

“When I sent out my resume consulting companies told me they were cutting back significantly on new hires, so I knew good grades alone would not get me the job I wanted, I needed work experience too… The experience just gives you a ton of confidence,” said University of Utah honors student Alexandra Weiss. “As a student, you can’t get that direct business education anywhere else.”

Only a handful of students belong to this organization and it seems to focus mostly on teaching students how to pick start-ups to invest in.

This is interesting to me. It shows that there is a desire to be a part of and to implement innovative programs where students are the performers and there are real stakes, not just theory in the classroom. This program seems small though, at least as far as student participants. However, they do claim to have been approached by a couple hundred student entrepreneurs across the United States. Which is not surprising considering that they can relate to each other on a student-student level.

Check it out here.

Ryan

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