Wednesday, September 22, 2010

University of Utah Launches New Venture Fund

The University of Utah Eccles School of Business said yesterday that it has opened up a new, student-run venture capital fund. According to the school, the new fund, the University Impact Fund, will focus on socially responsible investing, with a particular focus on companies solving social and environmental problems. The University said it has not yet started raising money for investment, but is establishing long term relationships in the impact investing community. The new fund comes from the same effort as the University Venture Fund, the student-run, $18M venture capital fund also based out of the U of U. Both graduate and undergrad students, from any discipline and from several local universities can get involved in the fund, which requires those students to commit a minimum of 20 hours per week. The fund is advised by Dominion Ventures and European Venture Partners' Geoff Woolley, and Jim Sorenson, co-founder of Sorenson Capital.