Webinar
Emmet Street Ventures Fund Launch
Join Alumni Ventures’ Chris Sklarin, Evy Chen, and Jamal Grant for an introductory session on Emmet Street Ventures, a fund dedicated to investing in high-potential startups connected to the UVA community.
This webinar will provide an overview of the fund’s strategy, how the team sources and evaluates deals, and what differentiates Emmet Street Ventures within the venture capital landscape. The hosts will also highlight recent market trends and explain how investors can gain diversified exposure to promising startups through this unique offering.
Whether you’re a UVA alum, affiliate, or just curious about venture investing, this session is designed to provide you with key insights and next steps. You’ll leave with a better understanding of how the fund operates and how to get involved. Reserve your spot today to learn how Emmet Street Ventures is building a strong community of investors and entrepreneurs.
Why Attend?
- HomeLearn about Emmet Street Ventures’ mission, strategy, and connection to UVA
- HomeDiscover how Alumni Ventures identifies and backs emerging startups across a range of sectors
- HomeHear directly from the investment team about the fund’s unique value proposition for investors
Alumni Ventures is America’s largest venture capital firm for individual investors.
About your presenters
Chris has 30+ years of experience in venture capital, product development, and sales engineering. As an investor, he has deployed over $100 million into companies across all stages, from seed to growth/venture. At AV, Chris has built Castor Ventures from Fund 2 – 9 to over 150 portfolio companies. Prior to Castor, Chris was a Vice President at Edison Partners, where he focused on Enterprise 2.0 and mobile investments. Previously, Chris served as Director of Business Development at a biomedical venture accelerator and at an early-stage venture firm. Earlier in his investing career, as part of JumpStart, a nationally recognized venture development organization, Chris sourced and executed seed-stage investments. Chris received his SB in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1988 and his MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Overview:
Evy brings a cross-disciplinary lens to early-stage investing, grounded in her experience as a founder, entrepreneur, and behavioral communications strategist. Her investment philosophy blends creative systems thinking with operational rigor, shaped by a career spanning startups, global markets, and behavioral economics.
At Alumni Ventures, Evy is a Principal on the Castor Ventures team, where she leads investments in consumer-facing technologies that drive behavior change. Her focus areas include neurotechnology, consumer AI, and next-generation commerce. She also plays an active role in Alumni Ventures’ Syndications, leveraging her founder mindset and strategic storytelling background to identify and support high-potential companies.
Funds actively worked on:
Castor Ventures
Syndications
Investment Areas of Focus:
Evy’s investment thesis is rooted in the belief that compelling, economically sound storytelling is central to unlocking market behavior and generating durable returns. She gravitates toward founders at the intersection of technology and human behavior—those reimagining how consumers interact, decide, and evolve with products and platforms.
Her unique approach is informed by her founding journey: she launched and scaled Evy Tea, a pioneering cold brew brand distributed nationally, and later founded Nudge Venture, a behavioral economics research studio focused on applied strategy. Recognized by outlets like the BBC and Forbes, her work exemplifies a blend of commercial instinct and narrative insight.
Having lived and worked across three continents, Evy brings a global perspective to her venture practice. She is a Sloan Fellow and holds an MS in Management of Technology from MIT, as well as a BS in Marketing Communications from Emerson College. She believes the most transformative consumer companies will not only drive transactions, but shape the way people think, act, and connect.
Principal
Jamal Grant is a Principal at the MIT Fund of Alumni Ventures. He has worked as an engineer and entrepreneur with experience across aerospace, consulting, venture capital, and the social impact sector. He began his career at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, working on satellite systems for NASA and the DoD, and later joined Bain & Company’s Private Equity Group, advising on technology and software investments. Outside of work, Jamal enjoys traveling, spending time with family, and working on his documentary, Ubuntu Rising, focused on economic mobility and progress in South Africa since the end of apartheid.