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Inside the Most Active VC Firm in the US
Day in the life at Alumni Ventures
Michaela Gordon
April 23, 2024
Happy Tuesday! ☀️ Today, we’re excited to be partnering with Alumni Ventures, the most active VC firm in the U.S. (and third most active in the world!) 🎉
I’ll be sharing an excerpt written by Meera Nair, an investor on the AV team, who dives into life at the firm and what to expect working in VC. See below for a peek into the world of Alumni Ventures and active opportunities to join the team 👀
We’ll be sharing our usual list of live VC roles later this week!
💹 Today’s schedule:
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Join the Alumni Ventures Team 🤩
🎉 Alumni Ventures is actively hiring new team members:
Principal Investor @ Castor Ventures (Boston, MA) - Apply Here
Principal Investor @ Castor Ventures (New York, NY) - Apply Here
Marketing Data Analyst @ Alumni Ventures (Boston, MA) - Apply Here
Read on to learn more about the firm and day-to-day life at AV 👇️
VC Profile: Alumni Ventures 🌟
💡 If you’re active in the VC ecosystem, chances are you’ve heard of Alumni Ventures and their portfolio companies, which include Oura, Circle, BlockFi, and many others. Founded in 2014, Alumni Ventures (AV) ranks #1 as the most active venture firm in the U.S. and #3 in the world (via Pitchbook ‘22 & ‘23), with a portfolio of 1,300+ companies. AV invests in ~250 companies each year alone 🤯
The firm is unique in structure: it houses more than 40 funds including Alumni Funds (Duke, Yale, Northwestern, MIT) and Focused Funds (Women, AI, Sports, DeepTech, & more.) Castor Ventures is an example of one of the firm’s Alumni Funds, with a focus on MIT investors, founders, and community members.
AV’s investor base is made up of 10,000+ individual accredited investors, and the firm has raised over $1.25B in capital since its founding - it is also a top-quartile performer in the industry.
Meera’s First Four Months on the Team 🏃♀️
Below is a blurb written by Meera Nair, an investor on AV’s team, to give a glimpse into key responsibilities as a Principal at AV and her packed first four months on the job ⬇️
💫 Join Our Team at Alumni Ventures!
“As we seek to expand our team at Alumni Ventures by hiring another Principal, I often get asked about the actual responsibilities of the role. The Principal’s daily activities include engaging with key figures in the startup ecosystem to expand our network, sourcing and evaluating potential investments, and guiding deal sources through our investment process. Additionally, the role involves leading the due diligence process, conducting in-depth investment analyses, and presenting opportunities to stakeholders while managing internal team members and overseeing various administrative and strategic tasks.”
🚀 Meera’s First Four Months - A Snapshot: 🚀
📈 Closed Two Deals: Successfully closed deals with a B2B SaaS company in FP&A software and a D2C women’s health platform.
🏢 Visited AV HQ: Discussed the investment strategy for 2024 at the AC headquarters in Manchester, NH.
🤝 Met Founders: Engaged with incredible entrepreneurs at the MIT Female Founders Pitch Competition.
🗽 Went to NY Stock Exchange: Achieved a bucket list goal by visiting the NYSE.
🎤 Heard from Industry Leaders: Listened to Elizabeth Reed speak about the future IPO market at the iconic Georgia Room.
🎨 Co-Hosted NYC NFT Event: Helped host the NYC NFT in the AV NYC office.
🤖 Spoke at NYU Tech Conference: Shared insights on investing in AI at NYU’s Tech Conference.
💡Check out AV’s open roles. You can find Meera on LinkedIn.
More on Meera Nair, Principal at AV’s Castor Ventures Fund👏
Meera Nair is a Principal at Castor Ventures (AV’s MIT Fund)
Meera has 10 years of experience serving as an investor and consultant to technology startups and enterprises. Prior to Alumni Ventures, Meera was a Manager at Deloitte Consulting where she led strategy teams that advised the world’s largest technology companies. Some of her projects include optimizing a $1T global social media company’s data center operations, leading the global rebrand of a telecom provider’s cloud offerings, and building a national healthcare exchange. She led sales proposals to help a semiconductor company shift to a subscription business model and enhance AR/VR capabilities of a social media company. At Apple, Meera helped launch Apple Arcade, preparing investment materials for Tim Cook to support the acquisition of multi-million dollar games. She has also worked with several early stage venture funds focused on media, consumer technology, and health/wellness technology sectors. She has an MBA in Finance from Wharton and a BS in Management Science from SMU.
VC Masterclass: How AV Evaluates Deals ✏️
Interested in how AV picks their ~250 portfolio investments each year? Check out their free VC masterclass on the topic below, and also take a look at their full library of VC resources - awesome for interview prep and on-the-job learning 🙌
Did you enjoy this newsletter? Let me know! :)I want to make these resources as helpful as possible - your thoughts are much appreciated! |
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Additional Resources 📝
Download my meeting notes template for VC/investment pitches 🧠
Check out my previous post for a list of VC interview resources 🗒️
Take a look at the Early VC job board for roles updated weekly 🤗
Join the waitlist for our VC candidate portal 🤝
Say Hi! 👋
And that’s all for this week! You can find me on LinkedIn and X. As always, feel free to reach out to [email protected] with any questions and/or feedback. I’d love to hear from you! 🙂
-Mic
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