Your Window Into the Innovation Economy

Welcome to One Startup to Know. This series examines some of AV’s most impactful and innovative portfolio companies that exemplify our investment ethos. Today we’re showcasing Rwazi, which provides Global 1000 companies with rich, reliable market data to help expand their businesses in Africa’s fast-growing consumer market.

Alumni Ventures has served as a value-add partner for all 1,200+ companies we’ve invested in, whether they’re seeking their first checks or laying the groundwork for an IPO. Read about the impact we are having on our seed and pre-seed portfolio companies in their own words. In many cases, we’ve leveraged the expertise of Alumni Ventures’ ~50 investing professionals and our network of more than 600,000 community members to help them scale into promising, later-stage companies. We have since been invited by some of them to invest in additional financing rounds.

Many academics, tech luminaries, and entrepreneurs believe that we are in the midst of an unprecedented artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, some arguing that the development of AI could rival the discovery of electricity. While history and hindsight will determine the scale of this technological leap forward, established tech giants and startups alike have embraced the technology.

PitchBook’s annual University Rankings measure the number of alumni from top colleges and universities who’ve launched venture-backed startups. Alumni Ventures has dedicated funds for more than 30 of the schools on this year’s rankings, including nine of the top 10 on the undergraduate list.

The potential of superconductor technology has introduced the world to what could eventually become one of the breakthrough technological discoveries in human history, easily on par with the discovery of electricity, steam power, and generative artificial intelligence. It certainly has the attention of VCs, who immediately grasped how this transformative tech could fundamentally reshape the modern economy.

Alumni Ventures portfolio company Ossium Health is well-positioned to develop a leading solution in the global stem cell therapy market, projected to reach $31.4 billion by 2030. Powered by the world’s largest bone marrow donor bank, Ossium is leveraging an unprecedented amount of data on stem cell behavior and characteristics to develop therapies for blood, immune, and inflammatory diseases.