UNB Students Make Real-World Investment Decisions In Venture Capital Course
Business students are a savvy bunch. Over the course of their degree they’ll build a set of skills to help them manage other people’s money — and usually make a lot of their own.
But a unique new program from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Faculty of Management is teaching them something else: how to give money away. Fredericton-based 3D Planeta and Saint John-based TrojAI have been the first student-led investments made by the fund, both of which show exciting potential for earning returns.
The school’s Venture Assessment Course plunges students into the world of venture capital. It guides them through the ins and outs of early-stage startups and puts real-world investment decisions directly in their hands.
Students work side-by-side with analysts from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF), learning how to conduct due diligence and determine whether startups are ready for seed funding.
Over the span of the course, they help the VC fund make investment decisions through every stage of the deal. The learning culminates with a $25,000 investment in an early-stage, New Brunswick company from UNB’s Fraser Student Venture Fund, driven by student recommendations.
Sydney Rankin works with UNB’s Faculty of Management and is a former graduate of the Venture Assessment Course.
She says the program’s academic foundation taught her more than she could have imagined and its practical elements opened her eyes to the value of experiential learning.
“Before I took this course, I had no idea how beneficial that commitment to delivering learning in such a hands-on, real-world way could be,” she recalls.
“We’re being taught to approach these investment decisions using the exact same methodology NBIF is using, and we’re interacting with their analysts throughout the whole process,”
But the real power of the Venture Assessment program was the knowledge that her work would help direct $25,000 of real-world cash to a local company.
When faced with the reality that you’re actually going to put someone’s real money into a company, you don’t want to be the one to screw that up; I realized very quickly how deeply I cared about the work and getting it right!” she says.
“It would be an entirely different process if this were hypothetical. The establishment of the fund and actually having the ability to cut a real investment is where so much of the learning comes from.”
Raymond Fitzpatrick is a director of investments at NBIF and the Instructor of the Venture Assessment Course.
He says Rankin’s experience is not unique: the course is so good at preparing students to excel in the venture capital world he routinely hires students directly from it.
In fact, five of his last six hires have been graduates from the Venture Assessment Course.
Fitzpatrick says the real-world experience students get over the course of the year prepares them exceptionally well to enter the workplace, and his new hires hit NBIF at full speed.
“They walk in on the first day at NBIF, I throw the business plans on the table and say go call these startups, you know what to do,” he says.
Fitzpatrick says the course teaches skills above and beyond how to conduct due diligence for investment deals: students also come away with a deep understanding of the startup world (including a wide network of connections), sharp research skills, and a nuanced understanding of negotiation.
Negotiation is valuable, whether in your career trying to get a new salary, whether you’re working in venture capital, whether you’re trying to negotiate your Roger’s Bill,” Fitzpatrick says.
Those skills shine through when students from the course each year attend the national Venture Capital Investment Competition hosted by Saint Mary’s University.
UNB’s Venture Assessment students routinely punch above their weight and have won the competition’s top prize twice in three years.
Rankin says the skills she learned through the Venture Assessment Course have helped her both in her professional and day-to-day life.
Along with giving her a leg up as she negotiated out of her lease, she felt she left the course significantly more employable than when she entered.
“I felt that I was contributing to work in a way that mirrored what could be expected in the workforce. That confidence is still the most beneficial piece for me today,” she said.
This story is sponsored by the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Faculty of Management.