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.
Welcome back y’all! We hope you had a restful, safe, and happy holiday break while we took a quick hiatus from the newsletter. A LOT happened in the last four weeks, so we’re going to try and condense the highlights for you. Plus, we have hella internships and fulltime jobs for you to peruse. PLUS, Rice Ventures has launched our Spring 2021 cohort applications! While Rice was on an extended winter break, we were hard at work, revisiting what went well and what we could improve on from our fall program, and revamping our website!
Rice Ventures’ Fall Discovery Program was focused on education, exposure, and engagement with the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’re building ventures at Rice from the ground up, and it starts with our students. The Rice Ventures Spring Development Program is all about building + shipping, focusing on getting student ventures to market with a lot of, and varied, guidance from mentors that we’re sourcing from our personal networks.
Our Spring 2021 Cohort will engage in eight weeks of mentor meetings and community building in order to accelerate their venture. If you want to build your network by 30+ founders, investors, and professionals and pitch your startup in a public demo day, apply today: Rice Ventures Spring 2021 Application
Here's the nitty-gritty:
Our early deadline is on January 30th; our regular deadline is on February 13th
Sessions occur virtually between 4:00-6:00 PM CST on Saturdays
Our program begins on February 20th, and ends on April 17th
Rice Ventures Reports
Obviously a lot happened over the last few weeks…
One thing is that we have a new president now! But the internet seemed to care less about that, and more about the meme potential from Vermont senator and former presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders. Don’t worry Bernie, we feel the same way.
If you’re interested in working in VC, Lindsay Knight at Chicago Ventures is building a database to send out to hiring VC funds! Fill it out to get your hiring info sent out to relevant funds.
Houston’s hot (in terms of temperature and a growing tech ecosystem), but investors have their sights set on Miami. To better understand why investors like Keith Rabois have been so bullish on the vibrant beach city, check out this Medium article on the VC + Angels ecosystem in Miami.
Is getting an MBA overrated? Jake Singer writes about the flywheel on business school, and how he believes OnDeck will entirely disrupt the system in this Twitter thread.
Maybe you’re not interested in an MBA, but going straight into industry! Jomayra Herrera at Cowboy Ventures writes about The New Career Stack, a second part in her series of how the career journey landscape is evolving.
Houston Happenings:
Houston Exponential’s Texas Companies to Watch in 2021: Jan 28, 5:30-6:30pm CST
Venture Houston: Feb 4-5, 2021
Mercury Fund’s How to Start a Startup w/ Heath Butler (new partner!): Feb 9, 5:30-6:45pm CST
Lilie Lab’s Napier Rice Launch Challenge: Apr 22, 2021
Internships:
We don’t think venture roles have ever been posted publicly at this rate before. While VC is still definitely a warm-intro-preferred industry, funds are starting to publicly advertise open positions online! Time to get on the hustle: write a killer application, contact anyone you might already know at the firm, and try to get some awesome referrals. If you represent a company and want us to promote an open position, send us an email at team@riceventures.org.
Internships/Fellowships:
Undercover VC Student Fellowship
VamosVentures’ 2021 Scout program
Reboot Student Fellowship
Greycroft Spring 2021 Fellowship
Civilization Ventures Spring 2021 Fellowship
Arc Ventures Spring 2021 Internship
NASDAQ Ventures Spring 2021 Internship
Costanoa Ventures Access 2021 Fellowship
Rocana Ventures Analyst Internship
Blue Cross Blue Shield VC MBA Internship
Connecticut Innovations VC Summer 2021 Internship
Lerer Hippeau Summer 2021 Associate
Full time Roles:
FFVC’s Venture Associate (see below tweet thread)
@ffvc is hiring an Associate to join our team! Details on the role and team, recommendations on how to apply, and what to expect from the process below 🧵 1/10CapitalG Associate - email jeremyzhu@capitalg.com
Big Idea Ventures Junior Associate
Pelion Ventures Analyst- email zain@pelionvp.com
MZZ Ventures Europe Analyst
AlleyCorp (NY) Associate
High Alpha (IN) Venture Associate
Mucker Capital Associate/Principal
At One Ventures Associate
TCG Associate
Front Row Ventures- several positions open, scroll to bottom of page
StelliumX’s Full-Stack Engineer
What We’re Following:
Even though 2021 has already been a lil hectic, here’s some of the fun stuff we’ve been keeping up on over the last few weeks:
Dogecoin valuation
Dogecoin spiked this year! Dogecoin is an altcoin, a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency that enables you to easily send money online. Their mascot is, of course, doge.
A friend of ours, Jeffrey Dong, writes a substack called Wrapped Up with two other students at INSEAD. Definitely check it out for some really interesting news, quick deep dives, and some fire memes.
The Startup
I am literally ~obsessed~ with this Netflix original. The Startup is a K-drama on Netflix on its first season. It’s a rom-com that has family drama, class clashes, mistaken identity, a love triangle, AND it’s about startups + VC?? Sign me up.
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 Notion and website.
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