Welcome to Illuminated, a biweekly curated newsletter featuring must-read content by Rice Ventures, Rice University’s student-led startup accelerator and entrepreneurship club. We’re aiming to become the BNOC (big name on campus) for anything and everything entrepreneurship at Rice. In this curated newsletter, you’ll find how RV operates, ways to engage in entrepreneurship at Rice, and insights into the Houston startup ecosystem. Please like this issue above if you’ve enjoyed reading! If you’ve been sent this email and you’re not a subscriber, you can join by clicking on the button below.
No, Rice Ventures is not listed on the NASDAQ. But applications are open, the Leadership Team is ready to go, and our mentors are lined up! And not to brag, but we have some pretty incredible student mentors ranging from CEOs at recently funded high-growth startups to VC analysts at places like DRF and Bessemer. 😎 We’re thrilled to get started soon, so apply apply apply! The cohort is open to any current Rice student, undergrad or not. Let’s launch. 🚀
Rice Ventures Reports
If you aren’t already sick of hearing about Robinhood, Gamestop, AMC, and Reddit, then you’re not in tech. We’re mostly kidding, but it’s pretty much all anyone could talk about for the last week. Here’s several explanations on how it all went down: Matt Levine's, Jill Carlson’s, Alex Danco’s, and Packy McCormick’s.
Backstage Capital raised $1M in equity on Republic. A game-changer for democratizing access to VC, Republic, the equity crowdfunding platform under RegA+ and RegCF, allowed Backstage Capital, run by Arlan Hamilton, to raise a $1MM fund. Backstage Capital is a fund focused on PoC, women, and LGBTQ+ founders, and their raise included over 1,600+ investors. Will others join in? Fund managers like Tyler Tringas at Earnest Capital and Mac Conwell at Rarebreed Ventures have expressed their interest on Twitter, so we’ll be eager to see what the future of VC fund management looks like from here.
Envision Cohort 3 apps are open! Envision is an equity-free virtual accelerator for young diverse founders and is 12 weeks long.
Houston Happenings:
Venture Houston: Feb 4-5, 2021 (this is happening right now! go attend!)
Internships:
Get that 🍞 ! If you represent a company and want us to promote an open position, send us an email at team@riceventures.org.
Internships/Fellowships:
Republic Ventures Fellows + Associates
Seems like public investing is out 😂 Want to learn about private investing instead? The application for Venture Fellows & Associates is now open! Learn from top speakers about investing in startups and jumpstart your journey on Republic - learn more👇🏽 bit.ly/VFArepublicpro…Utmost Marketing Intern
Amplitude Product Management Intern
Vice Ventures Summer Analyst
Divergent Capital Fellow
Costanoa Access Fellow
Two Sigma Ventures Summer Intern
Full-time Roles:
First Round Capital
📣 We've got four new roles open here at First Round! We're looking for a Talent Analyst, Partnerships Analyst, Senior Software Engineer, and an Investment Insights & Operations Lead. Please help spread the word! jobs.lever.co/firstroundFounders Factory Investment Analyst
NextView Ventures Platform + Ops Associate
Forté Ventures Associate
Moderne Ventures Associate
Moderne Ventures Chief of Staff
GoingVC Community & Outreach Associate
Remus Capital Chief of Staff
What We’re Following:
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Tech + VC Twitter is just where it’s at! That being said, tech twitter has been… interesting lately.
Chamath’s thirst trap
I thought we were talking about SPACs, not abs. Chamath Palihapitiya is the CEO of Social Capital, ex Head of Growth at Facebook, and SPAC king. Has been featured on VCBrags 1+ times. Where do we go as a society from here?
Hunter Walk’s trend forecast for Q1 2021
Elon’s Clubhouse debut
Elon basically threatened to break Clubhouse when he announced he’d be on the invite-only iOS app last week. According to Vajresh Balaji, Clubhouse has reached 6MM+ registered users as of Feb 1 after Elon’s interview. Here’s the tweet thread summary for those of you who aren’t on the app yet: (10pm PST is midnight CST so I simply… went to bed instead). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This meme from Caitlin Bolnick at CRV
Oh, did we mention that Rice Ventures Spring 2021 Cohort applications are open?
Hey! We’re Rice Ventures, Rice University’s student-led accelerator and entrepreneurship club. Thanks for reading Illuminated! We’d love your feedback - feel free to email us at team@riceventures.org. Like and follow our Facebook page and LinkedIn. For more content, check out our website.
If you liked this post from Rice Ventures’ Illuminated, why not share it? Leave a like and comment!