Your Window Into the Innovation Economy

This lesson explores how venture investors assess founders, leadership, and teams. You’ll learn how investors evaluate founder-market fit, leadership capabilities, team dynamics, and the qualities that indicate a management team can successfully execute and create long-term value.

This lesson explores the Alumni Ventures approach to venture investing and how the firm was built to expand access to venture capital. You’ll learn why diversification matters in venture investing, how professional venture portfolios are constructed, and how individual investors can participate in an asset class that was historically difficult to access.

This lesson explores how startup ownership is tracked in capitalization tables (cap tables). You’ll learn how investors analyze ownership structures, dilution, shareholder rights, and investment terms to better understand a company’s financial foundation and future growth potential.

What makes a startup truly stand out? In this video, Greg Baker gets to the heart of what investors want to know: Why your team, and why now? He talks about the power of founder-market fit — teams solving problems they actually understand — and why timing can make or break even the best ideas. Greg shares real stories of startups that were too early or too late, and why real disruption happens when the right team hits the market at the perfect moment.

Understanding who leads a venture round — and why it matters — is one of the most important skills in venture investing. In this class, you’ll learn how experienced venture firms and partners can influence startup outcomes, why conviction matters, and how Alumni Ventures evaluates the signals behind strong lead investors.

This lesson explores how venture investors analyze deal dynamics — including runway, round composition, valuation, and investment terms — to evaluate risk and build conviction before investing in a startup.

Great venture investing requires more than identifying exciting ideas — it requires evaluating whether a company can execute over the long term. In this class, you’ll learn how venture investors assess customer demand, growth momentum, business models, and competitive advantages to determine whether a startup has the potential to compound value over time.