The Bulletin #9: Welcoming our new Analysts & VWV Challenge Updates
Everything Van Wickle Ventures is reading, listening to, thinking about, and more in the world of VC.
What We're Consuming in Venture:
Books & Articles we've enjoyed
The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
This book describes how one Silicon Valley insider has blazed a path of professional - and personal - success playing the game by his own rules. Randy Komisar has found a way to turn an ambitious and challenging work life into his life's work.
It unfolds over the course of an ongoing dialogue between Komisar and would-be entrepreneurs... and is at once a portal into the inner workings of Silicon Valley - from how startups get launched to how venture capitalists do their deals to how plans get prepared and pitched.
The fund’s mission is to “revolutionize the status quo for diagnosing treating and living with autism through a venture-capital model.” So far, AIF has invested in seven early-stage companies.
Portfolio companies include Axial, which is developing gut-restricted small molecule agents intended for the treatment of core autism symptoms; BioROSA, which is developing a biomarker for autism; Floreo, which provides a range of therapies through an AI-driven virtual reality platform; and Joshin, a digital care platform for people with special needs whose funding TechCrunch recently covered.
Podcasts
This podcast tells the story of how Chipotle was built: the story of how founder Steve Ells went from working as a chef at high-end restaurant to transforming the way we eat fast food
People to Follow
Smart people whose Twitter feeds we like to stalk
Zachary Aarons (@ZacharyAarons): Brown alum focused on Proptech, started his own fund called Metaprop. Follow him for all things VC/real estate!
Arlan Hamilton (@ArlanWasHere): Founder & managing partner at Backstage Capital
Memes
Because venture capital memes are a very real thing.
When VCs suffer from success
What do you think marks an official venture fund?
Van Wickle Ventures Updates
Meet Our New Cohort!
We are so excited to welcome all of our new analysts to our fund and we are excited for you all to hear from them soon!
Ioannis Alabasinis -- First Year -- Applied Math/Economics + Philosophy
Imani Stewart -- First Year (RUE) -- Gender and Sexuality Studies
Joshua Lim -- First Year -- IAPA + CS
Viktor Bárdi -- First Year -- Applied Math/Economics
Zyn Yee Ang -- First Year -- CS/Economics
Cécile Tang -- Sophomore -- Economics + IAPA
Jules Qian -- Sophomore -- Philsophy
Zach Rosenfeld -- Junior -- CS
Tsikata Apenyo -- MD 2025
VWV Challenge Update
Van Wickle Ventures is excited to announce that we have just completed the VWV Challenge and now have over $200,000 in our fund, ready to be deployed for new investments!!
Our team is so grateful to Bob and Erna Place for their second donation to the fund.
Ever since VWV was started in 2018 by Sophie Starck and John Diorio, they set out to find someone who believed in their vision and was willing to support it. They found Bob and Erna, as well as many others who have been so generous with their time and expertise, to mentor a group of students, giving them $150,000 to start investing. The VWV team has deployed most of that capital in four investments: 305 Fitness, founded by Sadie Kurzban; Minded, founded by David Ronick; Projector, founded by Trevor O’Brien (which was just acquired!); and Intus Care, founded by Robbie Felton. To continue to provide opportunities for our team to learn & grow, we met with the Advancement Office and started the fundraising process again. Bob & Erna generously offered to donate another $100,000 to the fund and created the “VWV Challenge” to raise a matching $100,000. With the dedicated help of Sarah Santos and Kyle Blanchette at the Advancement Office, we have officially completed that challenge with help from some other very generous Brown alums!
We have all our efforts focused on putting that capital to good use and continuing to make good investments, learn, and grow our team. Huge thank you to Bob and Erna Place for their time, expertise, guidance, and support. We’d also like to thank all of our current and former investment committee members: Troy Henikoff, Scott Friend, Laura Thompson, Jane Dietze, Jai Das, Aneesha Mehta, and Deb Mills-Scofield. We couldn’t do it without you!