Spotlighting Founders With a MIT Connection

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

• Where is the transcript for this webinar?

  Speaker 1:
  Alright. Hi everyone. My name’s Chris Sklarin. I’m a Managing Partner here with Castor Ventures. I’m joined by my colleagues Meera and Darrin, and we’ll introduce ourselves in just a few minutes.

  But first, a few housekeeping items. Welcome to today’s webinar. Castor is part of Alumni Ventures, a network-powered venture firm helping accredited individual investors become more successful venture investors. We’re pleased you’re able to join us today.

  We’re speaking today about our venture funds and our view of the associated venture landscape. The presentation is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to buy or sell securities. Offers are made only pursuant to the formal offering documents for the fund. Please review the important disclosures in the materials provided for the webinar, which you can access at www.av-funds.com/disclosures. I believe that’s shown at the bottom of the legal page.

  So before we get started, a few reminders: You’ll be on mute for the entire presentation. The webinar is being recorded and will be shared after the event. We encourage you to submit questions throughout the webinar. We’ll do our best to answer submitted questions or follow up via email.

  The webinar should last 20–30 minutes, followed by time for Q&A. To ask questions, just enter them into the webinar’s questions section of the control panel and click submit.

  Henry, who’s with us, will also help by dropping links into the chat area to the data room for Castor Ventures Fund Nine and scheduling links if you’d like to book a one-on-one call now, during, or after the webinar. If we don’t get to your question due to time limitations, we’ll follow up afterward via email.

  Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll cover today:

  • A bit about Castor Ventures

  • The strong case for venture capital

  • An overview of Alumni Ventures

  • A review of companies in the portfolio (which is usually the most exciting part—getting diversified into really great private companies).

  Introduction to Castor Ventures:
  We’re part of Alumni Ventures, America’s largest firm for individual venture investors. Over the last 10 years, we’ve raised about $1.3 billion from individual investors.

  We aim to create wealth for the MIT friends, family, and community supporters by building diversified portfolios of venture-funded companies—20 to 30 in a typical annual fund.

  We have about 31,000 alums in our network—community members and subscribers. Our team consists of experienced venture investors. Here with me is Meera and we have decades of combined investing experience between the three of us.

  We also support the community with our Fellows Program, where fellows can volunteer with us to learn about venture, receive venture education, and help us with due diligence and community outreach. We support fellows and others with job opportunities from our portfolio companies and often help with connections, capital, and customers for those companies.

  Quick intro on the team:
  I’m Chris. As I said, I’ve been with Alumni Ventures since 2017. Before that, I was a software engineer and sales engineer out of college, and did several startups in Boston—including a couple of IPOs. One of those was acquired three times while I was working there.

  I went out west to get my MBA at Berkeley, moved back east, and have been on the venture side since 2002–2003. Over 20 years in venture now. I co-founded a small startup seed fund in Ohio that’s still going strong, worked at another early-stage venture fund, a healthcare accelerator, and a later-stage venture fund before moving to Alumni Ventures in Boston in 2017. I love what we’re doing here.

  We’re currently working on Castor Fund Nine, actively investing Fund Eight, and excited to start Fund Nine. Hopefully, some of you will join us.

  Let me turn it over to Meera, who joined the team about a year ago.

   

  Speaker 2:
  Yeah, thanks Chris. Hi everyone. My name is Meera. I’m a Principal here at Castor Ventures. Like Chris said, I’ve been here about a year.

  I started my career in consulting in Deloitte’s Strategy and Operations division, working primarily with big tech companies. My clients included Apple, Google, and Meta.

  During my time at Apple, I helped launch Apple Arcade, their video game streaming service. I also worked on Meta’s data center operations, so I had exposure to large-scale tech projects.

  After that, I pursued my MBA at Wharton and shifted into venture capital to work with earlier-stage companies than my previous clients.

  Post-MBA, I worked at a couple of funds in New York before joining Alumni Ventures. In my venture work, I’ve focused mainly on tech. Chris, Daran, and I also work on the Deep Tech Fund here at Alumni Ventures, focusing on cleantech and deep tech investments.

   

  Speaker 3:
  Amazing. Hey everyone, I’m Darshan Shah, one of the newest investors here at Alumni Ventures. I’ve spent the past decade in finance and investing roles across both public and private markets.

  I started my career at Deutsche Bank as a Relationship Manager, working with pension funds, asset managers, and insurance companies to help maximize portfolio returns through securities lending strategies.

  While I saw the broader opportunities in public markets, I wanted to have a greater impact on tech innovation, so I moved into private markets. After business school, I worked as an MBA Associate at Scout Ventures, a seed-stage fund focused on frontier tech—think cybersecurity, robotics, drones—serving both government and commercial applications.

  Prior to joining Alumni Ventures, I spent four years leading investments at an early-stage fund in New York City called HL Ventures. There, I invested across seed through Series B in companies spanning healthcare, fintech, enterprise SaaS, and many climate and clean energy startups.

   

  Speaker 1:
  Cool, thanks. Now, let’s talk about why venture is important for your portfolio.

  This is one of the most important slides, and I moved it up early in the presentation. There are several studies we reference—by Invesco, PwC, and Cambridge Associates—that examined correlations between asset classes.

  The studies compared high-yield bonds, private equity, real estate, and venture capital with public markets.

  If you recall from statistics, a correlation of 1 means two investments move exactly the same—like investing in the S&P, NASDAQ, or Russell indices. A correlation closer to 0 means no relationship, and -1 indicates an inverse relationship.

  To balance out inevitable market ups and downs, it’s valuable to include uncorrelated assets in your portfolio.

  According to these studies, venture capital has a correlation of -0.06—essentially uncorrelated with public markets. Compare that with real estate, private equity, and high-yield bonds, which are more closely tied to large-cap equities.

  This demonstrates that while venture is high-risk, high-reward, it’s also largely uncorrelated with public markets. That’s why it’s important to have it in your asset mix.

  Big institutional investors—pension funds, endowments, insurance companies—are already doing this, increasingly allocating to venture to capture these returns and diversification benefits.

  Here’s how Alumni Ventures works: Our fund teams (myself, Meera, and Daran) actively source deals. We recently had a busy fall—September through November. I attended MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program events in Cambridge on climate change, sustainability, and AI.

  We also participated in a Saturday MIT AI conference in New York, and a two-day Engine Summit highlighting tough tech startups. Meera and Daran covered Climate Week in New York.

  From these events and other outreach, we review hundreds—if not thousands—of deals annually and narrow them down to the most promising opportunities.

  Speaker 1:
  So, the center of that diagram on the slide is about network-powered access and a disciplined process. We rigorously whittle down the companies, tossing out ones that don’t quite match. As a co-investor, we look for good alignment with lead investors to move toward a possible investment.

  Once we’ve scored a deal, we bring in colleagues from Alumni Ventures—there’s always a second team helping us, whether it’s a Series A, B, or even a C deal. They help us score the deals. For a very small deal, only one fund might invest, but for larger deals, multiple funds can invest into a single company.

  For Castor and all alumni funds, we’re assembling a diversified portfolio for you—20 to 30 investments per fund year. These are diversified by stage, sector, and geography. We reserve about 20–25% of the fund for follow-on investments to back the best companies over time as they gain traction and raise additional rounds.

  Let me jump over to Daran, who’ll talk about how we get access to these great investments.

   

  Speaker 3:
  Yeah, thanks Chris. A lot of what we do here at AV is trying to get into these hard-to-access deals. Getting access to top founders is really difficult, and it goes beyond just providing capital. With hundreds of funds in the market at every stage, founders are looking for funds that differentiate themselves.

  At AV, we call it “network-powered venture capital.” Beyond capital, we offer more. Our community has over 750,000 members from top universities, including MIT. We also have about 1,400 founders who make connections for us daily.

  Our network helps us and our portfolio companies find board members, advisors, potential clients, service providers, and more. It’s a two-way street: the network helps us source deals, and we help founders through introductions and support.

  We even have a dedicated team for portfolio companies called CEO Services. This team helps our portfolio companies navigate our extensive network, find the right contacts, and get warm intros and follow-ups. This goes beyond business development—we’ve received a lot of positive feedback from both investors and portfolio companies about the value of this offering.

   

  Speaker 1:
  That’s great. Let me move to the next slide—our network-powered investing process.

  On the left, we outline Alumni Ventures’ role, and on the right, Castor Ventures’ role. Our small team is out there finding deals and selecting the best ones for our funds.

  On the left side, you’ll see all the other teams at Alumni Ventures—there are 40 of us across investing teams. Each circle represents a different alumni fund logo. Ours, Castor Ventures, is at the 3 o’clock position, and you can see others from Berkeley, Stanford, and many more.

  We’re one big team under Alumni Ventures. We often source deals and co-sponsor investments with these other teams.

  We conduct thorough due diligence, manage our external investment committee (typically volunteers contributing 20–40 hours a year), and work closely with Meera, Daran, and me to vet companies during the investment process.

  We also collaborate across teams at Alumni Ventures to maximize opportunities and act as value-added partners to the MIT network.

  Recently, Meera and Daran attended MIT’s Delta V accelerator competition in New York City. Meera and I also attended a Female Founders event hosted by the Sloan Club of NYC, where we met around a dozen entrepreneurs and are actively following up on potential investments from that event.

  We’re working hard to add value to the network and build the ecosystem.

   

  Speaker 3:
  For us, diversification means more than just investing in different sectors. We aim to diversify portfolios by sector, stage, geography, and lead investors.

  Venture capital can deliver significant returns, but timing and market dynamics can lead to concentrated risks. To mitigate that, we diversify across:

  • Sectors: We invest in AI/ML, cybersecurity, SaaS, health tech, and more. Balancing investments helps reduce sector-specific risk.

  • Stages: About 25% of our portfolio is seed-stage opportunities with attractive early valuations. Around 50% goes into early-stage companies (post-seed, Series A, sometimes Series B) with strong product-market fit. The remaining ~25% is in growth-stage deals (Series C and beyond) with proven traction and proximity to exits.

  • Lead Investors: Partnering with top-tier funds like NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia provides strong deal leadership. We also conduct our own diligence to ensure teams and board members have relevant expertise to support portfolio companies.

  This diversification approach balances risk and return across the portfolio.

   

  Speaker 1:
  That’s great. Moving on: AV co-invests with experienced venture firms. Meredith, can you talk about our frequently cited co-investors?

   

  Speaker 2:
  Sounds good. Daran mentioned some of the top investors we invest alongside—and that’s absolutely right.

  We’re one of the most active investors in the industry, with over 1,300 portfolio companies. Because of that scale, we frequently co-invest with leading VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, and others.

  We have over 30 investments with firms like Andreessen and Sequoia. Later in the presentation, Daran will highlight companies where we’ve co-invested with these top names, such as Alter.

  Our broad and diversified portfolio benefits from these partnerships. Top-tier VCs bring deep domain expertise and specialized knowledge, which we can leverage during our diligence process.

  Moving to the next slide—we’ll discuss timing. AV already manages venture investments for over 10,000 people. Chris, I’ll hand it back to you to elaborate.

  Speaker 1:
  So, 10,000 individuals trust us with their venture investing. A very important question I’ve been getting, especially this week, relates to the markets. As we know, markets don’t like uncertainty, and over the last couple of weeks and months there’s been a lot of it.

  People are wondering: What’s Jerome Powell going to do about interest rates? What’s happening with the presidential election?

  As of Thursday, we have some of that uncertainty resolved:

  • The Fed just announced a quarter-point rate cut, following a previous half-point cut.

  • The election concluded without violence on Tuesday, and we know where things stand now.

  I think markets will be much happier with this clarity.

  So what does this mean for venture capital?

  It’s hard to predict exactly what any new administration will do, but we can expect less regulation and lower taxes, which could be good for mergers and acquisitions, as well as IPOs. Lower rates and a business-friendly environment could make it more attractive for companies to reach profitability and go public or pursue M&A opportunities.

  We’ve also seen recent commentary from PwC and others suggesting that this environment will open the floodgates for deals. The Verge published an article noting that many big venture capitalists supporting the Republican ticket believe a lighter regulatory environment will benefit businesses.

  While we’ll have to wait and see how much of that comes true, the markets have been in a wait-and-see mode. With some uncertainty resolved, there’s reason to believe we’ll see improved sentiment. Combined with lower interest rates, we’ll likely see more capital moving from fixed income to equities—and equities should include private markets, including venture capital.

  Investor sentiment indicates that 2025 and 2026 could be strong years for exits. For those of you considering investing in Castor Fund Nine, keep in mind that these companies are likely to exit in the 5–10-year timeframe, very different from today’s environment.

  However, with interest rates coming down, it will be easier for these companies to secure financing, making it more likely they can reach those successful exits. The Fed’s recent quarter-point cut and anticipated future cuts will help open the IPO and M&A windows in the near future.

  Now, moving on to the spotlight of any venture presentation: the companies we’re investing in. We have several companies listed here, and we’ll go through them left to right. Arsan, you’ll start us off with Alterra, and then we’ll move across the list.

   

  Speaker 3:
  Yep, sounds good. The first company here, as Chris mentioned, is Alterra AI. It’s a fascinating application of the current AI wave. Alterra AI is a multi-agent research company building digital humans—cutting-edge AI agents that enhance how AI interacts with users, particularly in gaming.

  They’ve developed agents that can serve both individual users and enterprises. Right now, they’re partnering with game studios and designers to integrate these agents.

  Their first game, Play Labs, allows AI agents to play Minecraft alongside users. It’s been a huge success because it’s an easily relatable, everyday use case, and they’re seeing a massive uptick in gameplay.

  In terms of funding, they’ve raised $11 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Eric Schmidt’s First Spark Ventures, and several gaming-focused funds. The team has incredibly strong backgrounds.

  There’s also a strong MIT connection—Robert Yang, the CEO, is a former MIT professor and has recruited multiple engineers from MIT to join the company.

  Moving on to Toggle Robotics. As the name suggests, this company is in the robotics sector, focusing on transforming how cities and municipalities are built.

  Toggle is automating labor-intensive construction tasks, specifically welding rebar. Using advanced robotics and AI, they’ve developed both hardware and software to improve productivity and reduce labor costs.

  Traditionally, these construction processes are very expensive and time-consuming. Toggle is addressing these challenges, and there’s already significant demand in the U.S. and large markets in the Middle East where entire cities are being built from scratch.

  Toggle Robotics is securing multimillion-dollar contracts and is well-positioned for future repeat business. They previously raised about $10 million in a Series A from TBE Venture Partners, Point72, and Blackhorn Ventures—well-known firms in the New York City area. They’re planning to raise a Series B soon.

  Now I’ll turn things over to Meera to talk about a company you’re likely familiar with.

   

  Speaker 2:
  Thanks, Han. If you’ve been following the news, you’ve probably heard of Groq. It’s essentially a competitor to Nvidia.

  Nvidia, as you know, is one of the most valuable companies in the world. They manufacture GPUs (graphical processing units) used for training AI models. These chips handle the data needed to train AI models effectively.

  Groq, founded in 2016, developed a chip designed specifically for inference—the stage where you use trained AI models to generate results.

  As AI continues to become an integral part of daily life—embedded in virtually every tool and application—we need sufficient compute power to handle the growing demand. Groq’s technology is poised to play a key role in meeting this need.

  Speaker 2:
  They’ve created these LPUs—language processing units—that are four times faster, five times cheaper, and three times more power-efficient than traditional Nvidia GPUs. Groq sells tokens to developers to run their AI software on the Groq Cloud. They also sell infrastructure to larger clients operating their own data centers—think of big tech companies.

  Since launching Groq Cloud, their developer base has grown to about 570,000 developers who are very enthusiastic and excited about Groq. This number is increasing by thousands every week, growing 36% week over week. When he first invested, they were at about 300,000 developers, so it nearly doubled in just a couple of months.

  We’re also really excited about CEO Jonathan Ross. He helped create Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), so he’s highly knowledgeable and experienced in this space. The rest of the Groq team also has deep expertise, with former employees from Intel, AMD, and Sun Microsystems. We’re very impressed by the team overall.

  Another reason we’re excited about Groq is geopolitical. Groq has an entirely North American supply chain—they produce their chips here, and their foundry is here. As political climates shift and tariffs change, Groq’s supply chain and chip production remain largely unaffected. This is a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage.

  For MIT connections, Tamer—an MIT alum—sits on Groq’s board. We participated in their Series C round led by Tiger Global a couple of years ago, and we recently invested again in their Series D round led by BlackRock. Existing investors like Tiger Global, Social Capital, Samsung, and KDDI also participated on a super pro rata basis, meaning they increased their ownership stakes. We like the investor mix—a strong combination of traditional financial backers and strategic investors.

   

  Speaker 1:
  Alright. Enable is one of our really amazing—but admittedly “boring”—companies. It’s a leading rebate management platform designed to streamline the complex process of managing rebate programs between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.

  For example, say you’re selling widgets to Home Depot: every million widgets earns a specific discount, and the next million might earn a different discount. Someone has to track all these discounts, ensuring accurate billing and proper rebate payouts.

  Before Enable, this was typically done with phone calls, spreadsheets, and accounting departments calling each other, often leaving money unbilled or unclaimed.

  Enable offers a cloud-based solution that automates rebate calculations, agreements, and payments. It helps companies improve profitability, enhance transparency, and reduce administrative overhead. The platform integrates seamlessly with ERP systems and provides real-time insights into rebate performance for better compliance.

  As companies increasingly optimize supply chains and maximize rebate revenue, Enable becomes incredibly valuable. It’s a compelling opportunity in the growing FinTech and B2B SaaS space. With its scalable business model and expanding customer base, we believe Enable is well-positioned for strong growth and market leadership.

  We participated in several rounds for Enable, identifying them early. Their Series A round in 2020 was led by Menlo Ventures. We were closely involved as the CEO relocated from the UK to San Francisco. During that time, we introduced Enable to Norwest Venture Partners through an Alumni Ventures connection—Norwest led the Series B round in 2021, where we also invested.

  Later, Insight Partners led the Series C round in 2022. Enable has since raised a Series D in 2024, co-led by Insight and Lightspeed.

  Our original Series A investment is now up 12x compared to the 2024 Series D valuation. Of course, these gains are unrealized and could fluctuate, but so far we’re very bullish on Enable. The company consistently meets targets, remains in high demand, and hosts user groups and conferences worldwide—including recent events in Boston and Australia. We’re excited to see where Enable goes next. Meera, back to you for Heart.

   

  Speaker 2:
  Thanks, Chris. Heart is a little different—definitely more capital-intensive than many of the other companies we’ve discussed. It’s a hybrid-electric airplane manufacturer founded in 2018 as a commercial spinoff from a Swedish government research program.

  The founder, Anders Forslund, is a former MIT researcher and was excited to join Castor’s portfolio. The company is developing the first generation of zero-emission electric aircraft. While these planes won’t be commercially available until 2028 (about three years from now), the company already has over 250 confirmed orders and 300 additional letters of intent.

  Major airlines like United Airlines, Mesa Airlines, Air Canada, and Delta are both customers and investors.

  We participated in Heart’s Series B round led by Lowercarbon Capital (Chris Sacca’s venture fund). Chris Sacca is a Midas List investor. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Bill Gates’ fund, also participated, along with EQT Ventures. Many investors, particularly Lowercarbon, increased their ownership stakes through super pro rata participation.

  With these funds, Heart recently opened a U.S. hub in Southern California to begin hardware testing toward type certification. They also appointed Ben Stabler, former SpaceX and Parallel Systems engineering leader, as Chief Technology Officer.

  Chris also had the opportunity to interview Heart Aerospace—be sure to check out that discussion; it’s a great listen.

   

  Speaker 1:
  To wrap up: Venture investing is smart investing.

  Historically, venture has outperformed public markets over long periods—5, 15, even 25 years. A 2020 study shows venture is largely uncorrelated to public markets, providing portfolio balance.

  Significantly more value is being created in private markets today than in previous decades. Many companies are staying private longer, meaning much of the value goes to private market venture investors.

  Properly sized and diversified VC portfolios offer a favorable risk-reward profile. It’s a strong complement to traditional public portfolios.

  Determine the right venture allocation for you. You can speak with our senior partners—Darren is available for calls, as am I.

  For context, a 2021 study showed that college endowments with $1 billion or more allocated over 26% of their portfolios to private equity and venture capital, seeking outsized returns from these asset classes.

  Speaker 1:
  The key terms—what does it take to invest with us? There are just a few simple qualifications.

  You have to be wealthy enough or have sufficient income to qualify as an SEC-accredited investor. This means you either:

  • Have at least $1 million in net worth (not counting your private residence), or

  • Have an annual income of $200,000 (or $300,000 with a spouse).

  As long as you meet one of those criteria, you’re considered accredited.

  With us, the minimum investment is $25,000. Our typical checks range from $75,000 to $100,000, though larger investments are also welcome. Investors can use cash, self-directed retirement funds, vehicles created for non-U.S. investors, or trusts. There are many simple ways to invest.

  We charge a management fee equivalent to 2% per year for the fund’s 10-year lifetime (20% total). It’s a one-time process—just one check, and you’re in.

  For example, with a $100,000 investment, $20,000 goes toward fees to run the fund for its full life. You’re paid back the full $100,000 from exit proceeds as companies are bought or go public. Once you’ve been repaid, we profit-share: 80% of profits go to you as the investor, and 20% stays with Alumni Ventures.

  It’s a single capital call, and as companies exit, we send checks back to you.

  The term is 10 years. Liquidity is only provided when companies exit. Even after 10 years, if a company is still active, we continue managing the fund—at no additional fee—until we can distribute proceeds from exits.

  This is important: Don’t invest money you might need to access on a specific timeline, because we can’t guarantee when exits will occur. Some may happen early if a late-stage company exits in 2–3 years, while others—particularly pre-seed or seed-stage companies—may take longer.

  That concludes the prepared slides. Our senior partners—Darren, Stacy, and Dan—are available to take phone calls. Henry will put the scheduling link in the chat, or you can visit our data room.

  We’ll now move to the legal slide and then Q&A.