How to Participate in Columbia Venture Community
Columbia Venture Community was founded in 2006 as a community to foster entrepreneurship among Columbia University alumni, students, faculty, and employees. Affectionately shortened to “CVC” over the years, our community has grown to become the largest network of Columbia affiliates in the venture space.
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CVC is the premier community for Columbia founders and investors to meet and learn from each other.
• Apply to join CVC’s Slack space. As a founder, share your startup via the #looking-for-funding channel. As an investor, find startups aligned with your investor thesis.
• Create a profile on Thunder.vc, our investor matching platform partner. Include “Columbia University” in your profile so founders, investors, and CVC Event Organizers can find you.
• Attend networking events, including happy hours and speed networking events.* Events are shared on CVC’s Meetup and are in-person when safe to do so.
• Apply to pitch and judge CVC’s Demo Night, with 100+ investor attendees.* Opportunities to pitch are posted in CVC’s Slack space.
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Early-stage founders can apply to one of CVC’s incubator programs. Our programs are highly-competitive.
• Female founders: Startups with at least one female founder affiliated with Columbia (alumna, student, employee) can apply to Project 2.8, our virtual incubator for female founders.
• Impact founders: Startups with at least one founder affiliated with Columbia (alumni, student, employee) can apply to our Impact Program, a virtual incubator for impact startups.
• Healthcare founders: Startups with at least one founder affiliated with Columbia (alumni, student, employee) can apply to our Healthcare Mentorship Program.
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CVC members can learn about entrepreneurship and get solutions to pressing problems as they build a startup.
• Attend panels and fireside chat events. CVC has hosted 500+ events across industries and functions including notable talks with unicorn founders and prominent VC MDs.
• Get answers to startup questions. Apply to join CVC’s Slack space, and just use the #asks-and-advice channel.
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Support the growth of founders and investors by offering resources and building programming for the community.
• Sponsors: Companies, organizations, and VC firms partner with CVC to raise brand awareness. Your brand can underwrite our long-term mission as a Sponsor to ensure our stability to grow while increasing the brand’s awareness and outreach among a valuable engaged audience. Learn more about becoming a sponsor here.
• Columbia event organizers: Organizers of Columbia communities and entrepreneurial programs can share their offerings with CVC’s member base of 6,000 members. Apply to become a CVC Partner.
