Are we approaching the point where Boston will have more venture capitalists living in dorm rooms than in Wellesley?
Maybe not yet. But another student-run investing group is about to start putting money into campus startups, this time at Tufts University. The Tufts Venture Fund, formed last year by students including Eric Peckham and Alexandra Halbeck, has been out raising money from Tufts alumni with an aim of reaching $300,000. Faculty advisor James Barlow tells me that “they’ve been successful in securing $150,000 for certain, and they may actually be in the range of $250,000.”
The fund “will probably launch next semester, and begin making investments pretty soon after,” says Barlow, who runs the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at Tufts’ Gordon Institute. Investments will initially focus on currently-enrolled students, as opposed to recent graduates, and will max out around $25,000. The university will have a right to veto the fund’s proposed investments — a right “it hopes not to exercise,” Barlow says.
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