VentureWell: E-Team Grants

An E-Team (Entrepreneur-Team)is a multidisciplinary group of student-led teams working together with faculty to bring an invention to market. The E-Team Program is an integrated program of grant funding, training, coaching, and investment. The program’s mission is to give student teams the best possible chance to move technologies out of the lab or classroom and into the marketplace.

E-team program goals are to:

• Support the development of technology-based inventions and innovations that have a positive benefit to society and/or the environment
• Assist teams in creating business models that will scale in an entrepreneurial, economically self-sustaining way through the development of a product or service, in a nonprofit, for-profit, licensing, or a partnership structure
• Provide opportunities for student inventors and innovators to learn by doing through working in multidisciplinary teams on real world problems with the potential for scalable impact

Amount: E-Teams will have the opportunity to secure up to $25,000 in grant funding, attend required workshops (Stage 1 and Stage 2), and receive coaching from VentureWell.

• Stage 1: $5,000 + workshop
• Stage 2: $20,000 grant + workshop + coaching
• Stage 3: ASPIRE program: training for investment and partnership readiness

Teams that complete all three stages of training and are raising equity or convertible notes are eligible to be considered for up to $50,000 in matching investment from VentureWell.

Eligibility:

• This program is for U.S.-based college or university student-led teams that are a part of a VentureWell member institution (U.S.-based college or university). Annual membership dues are $999 for colleges or universities (see the following link to learn how to become a member: https://venturewell.org/membership/).
• If members of an E-Team come from different universities, at least one of these schools must be a member of VentureWell and administer the grant.
• Students should serve as the entrepreneurial leaders of a team, regardless of the origin of the idea or invention.
• Teams are required to obtain verifications of support from a Principal Investigator (PI), Administrative Contact (AC), and Department Chair (DC).
• Other team members should include advisors from within and outside the university who have experience, knowledge, and network connections that will contribute to the team’s success. It is strongly suggested that both technical and business expertise is represented on the team.
• There is no maximum team size, although the average size of successful teams is usually between 2 and 6 members. However, due to space restrictions, VentureWell can only accommodate 2 members per team at the workshops, or up to 3 when a special request is made.

Link: https://venturewell.org/student-grants/guidelines-stage-1/

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