Alumni Ventures

AV was founded in 2014 by Mike Collins.[3][4][5][6] Collins, who previously worked at TA Associates wanted to make venture capital more accessible to individual people and had grew tired of how the industry was mostly limited to the institutional investors and the ultra wealthy.[3][4][5][6] When AV started, Collins raised $1.5 million in funding from his alma mater, Dartmouth College for the fund, Green D Ventures.[4][7]

The firm focuses on fundraising directly from individual alumni of universities taking $50,000 minimum each rather than getting large investment funding from institutional investors.[4][5][6][7][8] Examples of alumni funds include The Yard Ventures (Harvard), Spike Ventures (Stanford), Castor Ventures (MIT), Purple Arch Ventures (Northwestern) and Strawberry Creek Ventures (University of California-Berkeley).[6][7] Some students of universities, claims the way AV advertise these funds is misleading as it gives the impression they are university officially sanctioned endeavors when they are in fact separate from the universities themselves.[6][8]

Despite AV having a large deal flow, the firm prefers to have a low profile.[4][6] The firm prefers to focus on investing in companies and avoids taking board of directors seats to change the company's direction.[4][6] Some startup founders do not even know that AV owns a part of their company.[6] SimpliSafe founder, Chad Laurans claims that he never directly interacted with the firm and it wasn't actively involved in the company.[6]

On March 4, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined AV $700,000 for making misleading contract statements and breaching operating agreements.[5][8][9] The SEC allege AV in its marketing communications claimed to have an industry standard management fee which was a 2% management fee during each year of its funds’ 10-year term and a separate 20% performance fee.[5][8][9] Instead AV assessed a management fee of 20% of an investor's fund investment which represented 10 years of 2% annual management fees.[5][8][9] The SEC also alleged AV commingled funds assets through loans and transfers among the funds, despite the contact language stating this was prohibited.[5][8]

• Astra
• Bloom Energy
• Casper Sleep
• Compass, Inc.
• Domo, Inc.
• FIS
• Getaround
• Shift Technologies
• SimpliSafe

• Official website