MBA Ventures Q3 2024 Update
The VC for top MBA Founders
Dear Friends of MBA Ventures,
I hope you are all enjoying these early days of autumn. In this issue we will take a moment to share our 5 Year plan and how we have progressed to date.
Cheers,
Clark & Monica
📈 5 Year Plan
Our strategy is simple: we are a sector-geography agnostic venture capital fund, focusing on providing pre-seed & seed capital to the most promising startups with an MBA student or alumni in their founding team. Beyond investment, we are building a community that bridges the best and brightest MBA profiles around the world.Â
Successful founders require drive, perseverance, and consistently high performance in a challenging environment. We believe that obtaining an MBA from a top program is a strong data point indicating these traits. Moreover, it is a mini due diligence in itself, as admission to such programs requires demonstrating a proven track record of success.
29% of US based VC-backed unicorns have at least one MBA founder (25% globally).Â
Status: we have made 21 investments to date across various industries. We are establishing our brand to be deeply embedded in the global MBA community to generate proprietary deal flow through three major sourcing channels:Â
Scouting Program: our competitive on-campus program encourages MBA students seeking VC exposure to share deal flow from their respective networks in exchange for carry and VC experience.Â
Co-investment Partners: we invest alongside university and/or sector-specific funds to close out rounds that they are leading in the top MBA founders across all sectors, and geographies. To date we have co-invested alongside top VCs including Sequoia, Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Accel, and Lightspeed.Â
Offline Ecosystem: we host or participate in MBA startup competitions and on-campus/hub events.Â
The key to our model is our ability to secure allocation in the best deals — this is a direct result of our elite cross-MBA founder community. Rather than competing with the well-established VCs, we strategically co-invest alongside them writing supporting institutional tickets of ∼$50k-$150k. MBA founders aspire to tap into the global network of top MBA counterparts, resulting in scenarios where they are asking their lead investors to include us in the deal for broader MBA community access.
Investing in MBA Ventures grants LPs access to an exclusive network of MBA founders. Additionally, LPs have the opportunity for direct investment in deals with allocations in the same round or follow-ons through SPVs in subsequent rounds for top-performing startups.
We have three primary LP profiles:
Fund of Funds: investing in emerging managers with our niche MBA angle.
Family Offices: diversifying their early stage venture allocation by investing in MBA founder thesis, creating an opportunity to cherry pick and direct invest in their favorite deals.Â
Angels (including MBA alumni): writing fund tickets to then gain access to the MBA community and to direct investments into deals outside of their network/geography.Â
Our vision: over 5 years we plan to close two funds: Fund I (proof of concept) and Fund II ($30MM). In Fund II we will increase the check size and reserve capital for follow-ons to increase allocation. Over time, MBA Ventures will become the stamp of approval for any top MBA-founded team launching a startup.
P.S. to learn more about MBA Ventures, feel free to contact us directly at clark@mba-ventures.com or monica@mba-ventures.com.