👋 Welcome to Kodiak Ventures!
We are WashU's first venture studio. Over the years, we have observed a remarkable and steady progress of student-founded startups, reflecting the immense potential and talent present among our student body.
Despite this progress, we recognize that there is still a gap in the support system for student entrepreneurs. Many aspiring student founders lack a dedicated space where they can receive the necessary guidance, mentorship, and funding to turn their ideas into successful ventures. That's where we come in.
We're here to change that. We aim to become a bastion of encouragement, support, and enthusiasm for all students who are interested in participating somewhere along the spectrum of early-stage tech ventures. This spectrum ranges from directly building a startup as a founder or founding team member to funding startups as a venture capitalist. Both sides of this spectrum (and everything in between) are becoming increasingly important to how business occurs as technological discoveries alter the way we interact with the world. WashU students deserve true exposure and experience in this space.
We come to the table with three main branches of operations, consisting of funding, oversight, and talent. Despite our presence in three areas with different functions, they are united by the desire to encourage undergraduates to build and support them every step of the way. We're all about cultivating the future of tech, startups, and VC. We're about cultivating talent.
WashU will be forever changed by the time we're done here.
Our vision is to grow WashU's startup culture through creating experiences that foster excitement to build and invest. We do this by establishing the infrastructure to allow WashU to naturally take a powerful first step towards elevating our startup culture into a mature ecosystem.
WashU students are among the most talented and capable of our generation. Students here have an innate urge to ideate, and projects are constantly emerging. However, not nearly enough of these projects become early stage ventures. Students are moving fast, and they need further support in place to be able to move. Undergraduates only have four years in school, and usually consider making a project a startup after their first year. They don't have time to wait for capital or resources or experiences. Kodiak Ventures intends to be the entity that acts upon this increase in ideation we're seeing on campus and act as the inflection point so that this university truly becomes a place for students to be builders as much as academics.
The Venture Studio - Areas of Emphasis
Since our establishment in 2020, we’ve left our mark on our university’s ecosystem and have no intention of slowing down.
<aside> 🪙 $45,000 in AWS Credits Administered to 8 Startups
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<aside> 💵 $1.15M in Dilutive and Non-Dilutive Funds Raised
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