As a Penn entrepreneur I couldn't be more excited for this. They opened up a completely new office on our campus and in addition to the fund are offering student entrepreneurs free office space. The way this has happened has honestly been a dream come true. It sure beats getting kicked out of coffee shops every few hours or trying to work in the library.
If I had to guess, I'd say that at least a few of my friends who dropped out to go to the Valley or NY would probably still be at Penn if this had happened a few years ago.
Agreed - as a Penn alumn, it's very exciting to see this kind of activity over the past few years. I graduated in 2006 - at the time, interest in tech and entrepreneurship was very far from the cultural norm on campus.
Some assets Penn has as the interest in tech expands:
- Penn has had a professional focus for a long time because of Wharton - that means access to all kinds of business, legal, capital resources. These resources will serve this repositioning towards entrepreneurship very well.
- West-Philly is dirt cheap. It doesn't get much cheaper in the United States.
- Philadelphia is culturally very rich. I mean this in a deeper sense than the explicit things like museums and venues. Upon moving to New York after graduation, I remember distinctly feeling like NY was more conservative culturally. This goes hand in hand with the above point - making rent is easier - allowing for all kinds of things. Namely, people took more risks and were more eccentric.
Nice to hear they're doing a good job with the launch. I know there's good talent in the Computer Engineering and CIS programs and the Weiss Tech House (can students get space to work on their startup ideas there?). I'd have loved it if tech entrepreneurship had been a bigger thing on campus when I was there - most people I knew, including many M&Ts, angled towards Wall Street instead of toward tech or even entrepreneurship in general. Thankfully one or two are making a mark in areas like alternative energy now.
It would be great to see Penn grow a big student entrepreneurship culture. It has the cross-disciplinary talent, the business resources, and the networks to place its startups in very favorable starting positions. If the pre-professional culture can be retuned to get students interested in dreaming up and executing big things, they could really get the startup show on the road.
To be a VC doesn't one need to be an accredited investor? Or does that only apply when using one's own assets to invest? In this case, it appears these student investors would probably not meet accredited investor criteria, but it may not matter since it's not their money they're investing in the first place.
"Under the Securities Act of 1933, a company that offers or sells its securities must register the securities with the SEC or find an exemption from the registration requirements."
Edit: Emphasis and point of my statement "exemption" (see below)
Offering securities is a whole different ballgame then becoming an investor, say, in the pizza shop or web startup. As shown by "friends and family" investing situations.
I think that's to be an angel investor but I could be wrong. Plus I think there's new legislation that makes anyone able to invest in startups, which is why Funders Club works.
In the sense of "entrepreneurial" spirit, perhaps. But in technical academics? Far from it. That crown is still held by Berkeley/Stanford/MIT/CMU. Entrepreneurship pretty much means essential technical abilities to succeed at a startup. If I want to hire marketing/recruiters/managers, sure, Penn makes the cut.
So, I used to go to Penn and now I go to one of the schools on that list. As far as I can tell, Penn CS students are better prepared to start companies, and probably as well prepared to be developers, as the students at my current school. They are not as well prepared to, say, go get a PhD in CS unless they go above and beyond the ordinary coursework.
But when the tech blogs talk about the "Stanford of the East" they're not really talking about grad school preparedness anyways. Stanford is set apart from the other schools on your list by its entrepreneurial spirit anyways.
If I had to guess, I'd say that at least a few of my friends who dropped out to go to the Valley or NY would probably still be at Penn if this had happened a few years ago.