Alumni Ventures is a venture capital firm backed by alumni of well-known universities such as Dartmouth and Yale. It has seen incredible success in its funding deals – ranking first in seed-stage activity in the US in 2020, according to PitchBook data. It’s portfolio includes companies like Wasabi Technologies, Divergent, and Hey Jane, all valued at over $1 billion.
Mark Edwards, the firm’s new Chief Investment Officer, has been an early investor from the start. He held a role in Private Equity and now leads a team of over 50 investors at Alumni Ventures. The company has taken on a unique venture capital strategy – it doesn’t seek to lead rounds, but rather prefers to be a partner and coinvestor to blue-chip firms like Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The firm’s network of alumni provides a competitive advantage by creating a foundation of expertise and insight into competitive deals.
Alumni Ventures is focusing on investing opportunities in Artificial Intelligence, particularly drug discovery. The firm is also leveraging its data set to hone its sourcing for deals, especially as investor partners migrate to other firms or start their own. Additionally, their network of stakeholders grants Alumni Ventures greater visibility to fundraising conditions and their impacts on terms of deals.
Mike Collins, the founder of Alumni Ventures, is a Dartmouth Alumni. He is the one who pitched the initial idea – to establish a venture capital fund that would be backed by alumni of different universities. The investor is now exerting his passion and ideas bigly through the success seen in the portfolio of Alumni Ventures. Mark Edwards is also noted for succeeding Anton Simunovic as the chief investment officer. Simunovic was an investor at Venture Guides for four years and was also feature in Insider’s Seed 100 list of the top early-stage investors.
Overall, Alumni Ventures is using their distinct networks of alumni to gain a competitive edge. Their coinvestment approach to partnering with notable investors and leveraging data sets is further diversifying their portfolio. They don’t plan to expand the number of funds they manage, but they are continuing to grow their network of stakeholders and invest into opportunities.
