The University Impact Fund is an affiliate of the largest student run venture capital firm in the country, the University Venture Fund. Founded in 2001, the Fund manages $18.2M and has made 18 investments in a diverse number of industries and stages. The Fund has had three exits including Omniture, a local web analytics business started down at BYU, which did an IPO in 2007. Today the Fund makes early stage, growth equity and later stage buyout investments in industries spanning consumer products to software to biotechnology.
The Fund has also achieved strong success is its other core goal: Developing the entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow. UVF has put over 200 students through its program, most of which have place with some of the top business firms in the country. UVF has shown through its successes that students that are properly trained and motivated can create tremendous value.
UVF syndicates with another institutional investor on all of its deals. Typically this allows UVF to participate in some of the best deals on the market alongside seasoned investment firms. By being opportunistic, UVF is able to work on and potentially invest in a high number of deals. In addition, the expertise of the students also helps dictate the types of deals done at UVF. The Fund believes in understanding what its investing in and thus won’t consider a deal in an industry where it lacks any kind of expertise.
The investment process is management entirely by the students, with mentoring support from management. The entire process takes 1-2 months in general from introduction to investment. UVF typically analyses around 100 deals for every 3-5 it invests in, though this is partially due to the quality of deal flow it receives from its partners.
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