The Dakota Foundation established two new venture initiatives with the UND Center for Innovation Foundation to provide educational opportunities for UND students interested in angel and venture capital investments in entrepreneur ventures -  the Valley Angel Investor Internship and the UND Venture Fund.  The fund was established Sept 2006.
 
Bart Holaday, chair of the Dakota Foundation said, “My wife Lynn and I want to give students the opportunity for hands-on learning from investing in startup ventures to train both aspiring venture capitalists and emerging entrepreneurs who need to know what it takes to attract equity investment.”  He added, “The real world of venture investing is identifying deals, hearing pitches, determining the valuation of a venture, negotiating terms, helping grow profitable ventures and monitoring the investments in the portfolio.  Graduates from UND who have this practical venture investment experience will have a competitive advantage if they want to be entrepreneurs or venture capitalists.”
 
The Venture Fund is unusual among college-based investment funds because students gain real world investment experience though researching and investing in pioneering startups in the region rather than publicly held companies to build a portfolio.   There are only three other universities in the country known to have student-run venture funds: University of Utah, University of Michigan and Cornell. “This places the UND Entrepreneur program in an unique and special position among the nation’s entrepreneur programs,” says Bruce Gjovig, Director of the Center for Innovation.
 
Gjovig noted, “College students are immersed in technology devices and products and have a knack for uncovering emerging innovation which may be an investment opportunity. This will be an opportunity for entrepreneurial college students to identify innovative technologies and consumer trends, both as entrepreneurs and as investors.” 
 
The UND Venture Fund will be a student-managed venture fund to invest in student ventures as well as regional growth companies.  The fund will be managed by four to six seniors in the entrepreneurship program or MBA students. The entrepreneurship program has grown to 50 majors and 80 students in the entrepreneur track (minors) across various colleges on campus, allowing for a diverse pool from which to draw. The students will find, evaluate, price, structure and monitor investment deals.  The fund will invest in ventures created by students and recent UND graduates as well as in venture capital opportunities in the North Dakota-Minnesota region.  Any returns on the investments made through the fund will be put back into the fund pool to continue the venture capital fund.

The Valley Angel Investor Internship will provide for the purchase of a membership in the Valley Angel Investment Fund LLC of Grand Forks, N.D., one of the 17 angel investor groups affiliated with RAIN Source Capital of St. Paul, Minn.  That membership will be owned by the UND Center for Innovation Foundation and the seat at the table will be held by the Dakota Foundation RAIN Maker Fellow, a UND senior or MBA student who will participate in the fund meetings and assist in evaluation and investment of entrepreneur ventures learning from the investor experience and assisting angel investors with the deal process.  The internship will provide at least one student each year an active role and in-depth experiences in equity investment and entrepreneurial ventures working with active angel investors.
 
“These two investments will favorably impact young entrepreneur-minded students in a meaningful way and will grow the next generation of entrepreneurs, angels and venture capitalists for North Dakota and the nation,” said Bruce Gjovig at the Center for Innovation.  “We are thrilled with the opportunity being provided by the Dakota Foundation for these up-and-coming entrepreneurs.  The UND entrepreneur program has been among the top-ranked programs in the nation since 2004, and these initiatives only make our program that much stronger.”
 
The Dakota Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 1997 by Bart and Lynn Villella Holaday to focus their philanthropic efforts on initiatives that foster social entrepreneurship in their respective home states of North Dakota and New Mexico.  www.DakotaFoundation.org

For more information about this student managed venture fund, please visit www.dakotaventuregroup.com.