📋 Coach's Corner: December 2021
End 2021 with a bang by applying for hundreds of thousands in non-dilutive funding
‘Tis the season for Spotify Wrapped posts, procrastinating finals studying, and pining for winter break to start.
Oh yeah - and funding!
Despite all of the wintery distractions, some of the biggest and best opportunities in the world of university entrepreneurship are open right now.
Rice’s BPC
Tulane’s BMC
MIT Water Innovation Prize
TCU’s Value and Ventures
Draper Competition for Collegiate Women Entrepreneurs
We’ve got some heavy hitters in that group.
While you have a little bit of a buffer before the next deadline (January 15th), it’s better to get your plan of attack ready now. There’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of non-dilutive grant funding up for grabs after all.
In order to receive these e-mails directly to your inbox at the start of each month, just drop in your favorite email below. Keep an eye out for future funding opportunities
Table of Contents
💰 Student Funding Opportunities
🔦 Community Spotlight
📋 Coach’s Content
💼 Internships/Jobs Board
🌯 Wrap-Up and Feedback (quick link)
💰 Student Funding Opportunities
Check out this non-exhaustive list of funding opportunities that are accepting applications RIGHT NOW. These are only the ones that most - if not all - university entrepreneurs are eligible for. Definitely check in with your own university e-ship center to see if there are any specific opportunities available to you.
Eligibility: Competing teams should consist of at least one and no more than five degree-seeking college students who are enrolled part-time (minimum of 6 credit hours) or full-time in a semester during the competition year. In general, a member of the student team should be CEO, COO, or President of the venture, or members of the student team should occupy 50% or more of the functional area management positions that report directly to the CEO, COO, or President.
Funding Amount: Unclear, but in 2021 the 3 finalists split a cash prize of $125,000.
Eligibility: At least one founder must be affiliated with an institution of higher learning located in the U.S. (i.e. student, faculty, staff at a university). Those taking leaves of absence are welcome.
Grant Funding: $1+ million in total cash and prizes, and the grand prize is a $350,000 convertible note.
Eligibility: The entry must involve a technology, product, service, or process aimed at solving a problem related to the world’s water challenges. The water space has numerous opportunities and challenges to solve related to policy, technology, data sensing, analytics, implementation, financing, end-to-end solutions, etc. A team must be comprised of at least one student who is fully enrolled at any college or university, and it must be a student who presents the pitch.
Grant Funding: The winners of the MIT Water Innovation Prize will be awarded innovation grants of up to $50,000.
Eligibility: Only currently enrolled undergraduate college students taking classes during the 2021-22 academic school year (August 2021 – May 2022) are eligible. Students who completed their studies and will graduate in December 2021 are also eligible, provided they have not started graduate school or are taking graduate-level courses at the time of the competition.
Grant Funding: Unclear for this year, but last year there was a grand prize of $40,000, along with second/third/honorable mentions.
Eligibility: Each team must have at least one eligible Team Member (see below) who is an undergraduate woman at any accredited not-for-profit college or university located in the United States. An existing business is eligible only if, as of 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2021, it has received less than $25,000 in funding and earned less than $100,000 in gross revenue.
Funding Amount:
Grand Prize: $25,000 + scholarship to Draper University Heroes Training
2nd Place: $15,000 + scholarship to Draper University Heroes Training
3rd Place: $10,000 + scholarship to Draper University Heroes Training
Honorable Mentions: $5,000
Track Pitch Winners: $2,500
Other prizes as determined by Competition Judges
🔦 Community Spotlight
Occasionally I get requests to share promotional items that would be a good fit for my audience of university entrepreneurship staff and student startups. If its a beneficial opportunity, I’m happy to spread the word. If you’re interested promoting something in an upcoming newsletter, you can do so through the button below.
Baltipreneurs Accelerator Now Accepting Applications for 2022 Cohort
GCEC 2021 host Loyola University Maryland is currently looking to find ventures to participate their competitive Baltipreneurs Accelerator program. As the name suggestions, this opportunity is available to any members of the Baltimore community so if you know anyone in the area who could benefit from a top tier unversity program like this, please send them Wendy’s way! A description of the program below:
This year’s Baltipreneurs Accelerator will provide a minimum of $40,000 in total funding for 8 ventures in the Baltimore community, including Loyola students, faculty, and staff. Eligible models include both startup businesses and innovative social ventures. Selected teams will join the Accelerator to receive training and technical assistance, mentorship, networking opportunities, and access to capital, ending with a Demo Day pitch in early spring.
📋 Coach’s Content
For those who don’t know, outside of the student entrepreneurship world I am the Head of Business Development for EcoMap Technologies - helping ecosystem builders to curate all of the resources, organizations, and ventures in their ecosystem. Recently it was announced that we were selected for the first ever Techstars Equitech Accelerator, taking place in our hometown of Baltimore, MD.
We’re thrilled to be representing our hometown in this inaugural cohort and officially be apart of the Techstars ecosystem! If you want to learn more about the Techstars cohort or Baltimore’ Equitech mission, you can learn more via the article below.
Getting rewarded to Surf online?
I’m normally not one to promote outside apps or services, but I recently caught the Surf wave and think it would be relevant to a lot students/educators. Surf is a chrome extension that allows lets us finally get rewarded from all the data that websites are already collecting from us.
You don’t have to do anything other than download a Chrome extension – just use the Internet as you do normally and get rewarded for it. How? Surf anonymizes and cohorts user data for brands. They don’t give access to specific browsing data - they will see only high-level browsing trends for a cohort (ex. Popular publications visited by 18-24 males in Los Angeles). It also works on top of any ad blocker or VPN that you might already use.
Essentially you get points for doing what you already do, which can be redeemed for digital gift cards from top brands or donations to the charity of your choice.
So if you’re interested in catching the Surf wave as well, just downloaded the Chrome extension in a few seconds and get rewarded for what you’re already doing (as a disclaimer, these are affiliate links. Help me & help you)
💼 Internships/Jobs Board
I’ll be honest, Justine and Olivia Moore (twin sisters at VC firm CRV) do a fantastic job curating internship opportunities through their Accelerated Substack newsletter. Highly recommend you get that coming your way ASAP. The below list is primarily their list with a few ones I’ve heard about sprinkled in.
Primary Venture Partners - MBA Associate (Remote)
DocuSign - PM Intern (Remote)
Reddit - PM Intern (Remote)
The YES - Brand Partnerships Intern (Remote)
Affirm - Software Engineering Intern (Remote)
Future - Data Science Intern (Remote)
Weee! - BizOps Intern (Fremont)
Front - Software Engineering Intern (SF)
Roblox - PM Intern (San Mateo)
Rivian - Business & Ops Intern (LA)
Beacon - Content Marketing Intern (Austin)
MagicSpoon - Product Development Intern (NYC)
🌯 And that’s a wrap
Thank you to everyone who made it to the not-so-bitter end of this newsletter. I’d love to know what you think of it. If you feel so inclined, please take a minute to submit a (very brief) feedback form to help this take shape.
Till next time.
- Kevin “Coach” Carter