VC Lab or Allocator One? Sanabil x 500 or Newton Venture Program? Coolwater Capital or Thema? Pitch Me First or Baby.VC? 2X Ignite or IMD’s Venture Asset Management? Classroom learning, fellowship or acceleration? For new and experienced people in the global venture capital space, the number of learning opportunities has just exploded. How can current and aspiring fund managers navigate in the 40+ programs out there?
By: Christian Rangen
September 2024
This blogpost is a part of our wider research on VC Ecosystems.
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Disclaimer: the author is faculty, program management, mentor or advisor to several of the programs mentioned in this post.
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The venture capital industry is booming, with more than 10X growth in AUM (assets under management), and 6X number of new firms since 2008. But how do new managers learn the ropes? What are the learning paths in the venture capital space?
Over the past five years we have been teaching, educating and accelerating more than 250 fund managers across different strategies and markets. For us, it has been an immensely rewarding journey, helping us better learn the global market, the nuances of LP value propositions, explain portfolio constructions and describe the key roles on a GP fundraising team.
During this work, we started the research behind ‘Scaling VC ecosystems’, and our learning journey took on a far more structured, research-focused approach. Researching more deeply the learning programs, educational offerings and accelerators available to managers globally, we identified a rapidly growing number of programs. This perked our curiosity. We dug in.
40+ Unique Programs
In total, to date, we have identified 40+ unique programs (and we are guaranteed to discover many more yet to come). High-level, we separate these 40 programs in two main categories education vs. acceleration.
For Education, we believe the primary focus of the group is to teach, develop skills and expand mastery of venture capital. This can be done in a classroom, online, immersive in the Valley or through extensive fellowships.
For Acceleration, we believe the primary focus is to help and support the fund managers to more quickly launch the fund and get to first and final close. In most cases, this is a process that can take 18 months, easily up to a few years. With the right support, it can be accelerated to just months.
Eight Strategic Groups
We structure these 40+ programs in eight strategic groups. Each group representing a collection of programs available.
Duration:
Short: 2-to-5 day duration
Medium: 4 week to 12 week
Long: 4 months to 24 months
Primary focus:
Learning: classroom or teaching format.
Goal: learn the fundamentals
Fellowship & learning: Community and action-based learning
Goal: Learn through network and experience
Acceleration: Supporting (back office) and accelerating fund managers to first and final close
Goal: Support a faster timeline to fund setup and closing
The Eight Groups –
Understanding the Learning Landscape
1. VC Associations
Globally, venture capital associations offer a wide array of education programs. From 2-day ESG Masterclasses, 3-day Fund Manager Masterclasses, 2-day Exit Masterclasses and 4-day fund reporting programs, these are usually between 1-day and 5-day in duration, and tend to be class-room or workshop based.Well developed ecossytems, like the UK, offer professional credits, like CPD accreditation to participants, allowing the participants to profile their education on LinkedIn and professional resume.
Selected examples:
Sanabil x 500 VC Unlocked
A week-long course designed to train and empower emerging fund managers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Learn more
How to Plan an Optimal Exit
1-day, in-person masterclass on planning and delivering successful exits in your portfolio.
Learn more
AVCA – African Venture Capital Association
Venture Capital Masterclass in Partnership with EAVCA
2-day, in-person masterclass on successful VC funds
Learn more
VC & PE Limited Partners Program
A 3-day, in-person program for educating LPs on VC and PE fund investing in the Middle East.
Learn more
2. Short-Term Educational Programs
A growing number of business schools are offering world-class education programs in the venture capital space. These programs are aimed at existing fund managers, emerging fund managers, Limited Partners and ecosystem builders.
These programs also tend to sit in the 2-day to 5-day range. Taught by world-class faculty, these programs offer more academic recognition than our previous group of VC Association delivered programs.
Notable examples:
IMD Venture Asset Management
2-day program with a focus on how Limited Partners and asset managers can understand the market and better make investment decisions into venture capital funds. Faculty: Jim Pulcrano
Learn more
Berkeley Venture Capital Executive Program
5-day executive program to learn how to skillfully navigate the venture capital world, delivered in the heart of Silicon Valley, or online. Faculty: Jerome Engel
Learn more
3. Short-term Immersion
Short-term immersive programs take participants into the field, allowing them to meet funds, meet founders and experience the ecosystem up close and personally.
These programs tend to run over 1-2 weeks, allowing a more ‘get out of the classroom’ approach to learning than traditional executive education programs do.
Notable examples:
Stanford x 500 VC Unlocked
With over 400 completed participants to date, the Stanford x 500 VC unlocked program offers participants the chance to experience the Silicon Valley ecosystem personally.
Learn more
Venture University
Venture University offers a range of executive education and acceleration programs. Their VC Masterclass offers participants to join in San Francisco, Hong Kong or online.
Learn more
4. Medium-Term Education
Next, medium-term education programs tend to run from 12 weeks to 12 months. They often combine in-person and online formats, for maximum flexibility. Still designed around classrooms, they tend to be run by large business schools, or at least in partnership with leading business schools.
Notable examples:
Newton Venture Program (London)
Offering three programs, Foundations, Fundamentals and Fellowship, NVP working in partnership with LBS, has brought a strong diversity lens to the VC education landscape in Europe and beyond.
Learn more
Columbia Business School: Venture Capital: Investing in Early-Stage Startups
Building on its success with shorter-term programs, Professor Angela Lee has designed a robust and flexible program covering both venture capital and private equity.
Learn more
5. Medium-Term Fellowships and Learning Programs
Our next category, fellowships and community-based programs tend to happen outside of the confines of academia, usually offering a ‘learning by doing’ mindset vs. educational credits. While business schools may partner with these programs, they largely tend to be
Notable examples include:
Dream VC (Africa)
With an impressive growth since its launch in 2021, Dream VC has already delivered programs for 170+ participants, from across 30+ different countries. Offering both a Launch into VC (entry) and Investor Accelerator (intermediate), Dream VC has had significant impact on the African VC ecosystem already.
Learn more
Dubai Future District Fund Fellowship
Based in Dubai, the DFDF fellowship is a 6-month program aimed at fostering the next generation of Emirati venture investors.
Learn more
Included VC
A fully-funded, 5-month global VC fellowship, the Included VC program is aimed at helping top talent break into VC for the first time. Think of us like a “unique fast-track MBA for venture capital” for extraordinary leaders, says Included VC.
Learn more
6. Long-Term Fellows Program
Globally, the single most sought-after VC learning program is likely the Kauffman Fellows Program. It also sits as the only program in our Long-term Fellows Program group.
A two-year fellows program with three pillars, expert-led workshops (20%), expert-led keynotes and lectures (40%) and peer-learning (40%), the Kauffman program
In operations since 1995, the Kauffman Fellows have 940+ alumni in 61 countries. As a network, the Fellows represent over $290 billion in assets under management, have collectively raised over $790 billion dollars in capital, and have been responsible for over $8.5 trillion in exits to LPs. While very challenging to get accepted and , at $80.000 + travels, pricey for most emerging managers to afford, the Program is one of the absolutely pillars of building out the global VC ecosystem, one network connection at the time.
https://www.kauffmanfellows.org
So far we’ve looked at education programs, either in the classroom, in the field or through engaging fellowships. These programs vary in target audience, ranging from anyone who wants to break into VC, aspiring managers, emerging managers, seasoned managers, limited partners and ecosystem builders.
The next two groups are both designed around accelerating first-time and emerging fund managers.
While still a learning journey, the accelerator model means that the participants are all in various stages of (trying to) raise their fund, completing the legal setup and back office or successfully reaching their targeted closing milestones for the fund. These participants may still very well have more to learn, but their focus is closing real deals, winning over skeptical LPs, securing enough working capital, hire their next team members and handle all aspects of back office and reporting.
This is where our accelerators come in. Just like with a startup accelerator, these programs are designed to make things go faster, smoother and hopefully better than the founders (in our case the General Partners) would have been able to do themselves.
For all practical purposes, we are now trying to accelerate investors, not startups. Here we find two strategic groups, with a growing number of programs.
7. Medium-Term Accelerators
Medium-term accelerators tend to run from 4 to 8 weeks (up to 14 weeks), offering extensive support on network, introduction and fund manager readiness.
These programs come with different business models, from government-backed, free to attend, to participation fee for the GPs.
Notable examples:
Coolwater Capital’s Build Program
Having published two books on how to raise and set up VC funds, Coolwater founder Winter Meads has established himself as a thought leader for emerging managers. Coolwater’s Build GP accelerator program has supported 200+ funds over 9 cohorts to date. Coolwater also makes selected LP commitments intoemerging fund managers.
Learn more
Moremi Platform
Based in East Africa, the Moremi Platform is an intensive 4-week program that provides structured training, investment readiness, technical assistance and network to early-stage gender smart funds on the continent. A partnership between Kuramo Capital and Solt Advisory, Moremi is launching its first cohort in 2H 2024.
VC Lab
This article would not have been complete without mentioning (paying respect, really) to Adeo Ressi and the team at VC Lab. Since inception in early 2020, VC Lab has run 15 cohorts, received 17.000 applications and accelerated 501 funds globally. Their mission: help launch 1000 new VC firms worldwide by 2025. With a free, 14-week curriculum, and a target to close funds in under 6 months (vs. industry standard of 18+ months), VC Lab is the global #1 GP accelerator. Recently, they also expanded with LP Institute, accelerating new limited partners globally.
8. Long-Term Accelerators
Taking a longer-view on the challenges of raising a VC fund, the long-term accelerators work very closely with the GP team over a series of months and beyond to secure not only a successful fund raise, but also the longer-term back office, reporting, deployment and financial impact.
In this group, most of the programs are either government backed (free to attend), for a fee & success rate, or the program takes an ownership in the GP Structure. A notable difference between the short- and long-term accelerators, is that the long-term accelerators tend to offer or bring in capital to the managers. This can be done through working capital loans (ICFA), warehousing (2X Ignite) or LP anchor commitment (Thema, Allocator One).
Contrary to short-term educational programs, these long-term accelerators aim to be genuine, long-term partners on your journey. This includes capital, network, services and a long-term community and network lens. In the case of PMF (Pitch Me First), they offer a 6-month program, focused on raising institutional LP funding, and then extending this with another 6-month post-program support.
Notable examples:
International Climate Finance Accelerator
An independent non-profit association, set up as a public-private partnership in 2018 under the Luxembourg Climate Finance Strategy, ICFA is backed by the Luxembourg government, industry and the EIB. On a mission to accelerating the climate finance leaders of tomorrow, ICFA is the number one climate VC accelerator globally.
Since its launch, ICFA has backed 34 fund managers over 7 cohorts, now tracking more than $3,3BN in AUM with the program alumni. In June 2024, the Luxembourg government announced the expansion of ICFA to include the ISFA – International Social Finance Accelerator
2X Ignite GP Sprint
Probably, the world’s leading six-month gender-lens accelerator, the 2X GP Sprint is completing its 3rd cohort, having accelerated 25+ VC/PE/SME and debt funds since its inception.
Designed by a 120+ large community of GPs, LPs, allocators, advisors and experts, the 2X Ignite is a part of the larger 2X Global gender finance platform on a mission to unlocking gender-smart capital at scale. 2X Ignite aims to accelerate the next generation of women-led, gender-smart fund managers – and to fund underrepresented founders.
2X Ignite is currently building out multiple pillars, including free digital academy, warehousing capital, working capital and global LP networks.
Allocator One
Coming out of the European tech ecosystem, the team behind Allocator One runs a 12-week, intense program to accelerate first time, (ideally, sub-$30M funds) to first close. Aiming to invest in the best new fund managers all over the world, Allocator One becomes an early LP in your fund (think, pre-seed investor), with €1M – €2M in LP commitment, with 1% management fee and 10% carry.
Beyond the program and early LP anchor, Allocator One offers a full menu of fund services, including back office, reporting and compliance, potentially saving emerging managers months of work and frustrations.
Learn more
Designing Ellen’s Learning Journey
In startup life, founders can – in some cases – jump from accelerator to accelerator, joining a pre-seed program, an impact program, a CVC program and a flagship scale up program, all in the span of a few years.
In venture capital, the education and learning ecosystem is much less developed, with fewer programs, most of more recent vintages (keep in mind, programs like VC Lab, Dream VC and Coolwater Capital’s Build program were all launched in the last four years). But, as it turns out, with the recent rise in education and acceleration, emerging and experienced fund managers can, in fact, design a learning and development journey spanning multiple programs and multiple accelerators.
We’ve illustrated this with a selection of 19 programs, featured below.
Ellen’s Journey in Venture
Let’s go through this journey with a story about Ellen, our over-ambitious, aspiring fund looking to break into venture, along the way going through five different stage of her learning journey.
Stage 1: Breaking into venture
With 2-years in corporate finance, and another 4 years as an operator in an AI climate startup, Ellen is starting to think about a future career in venture capital, but where to begin?
Her first step?
Venture Deals, the book and the online, 6-week program is a good way to get started. Next, with the motivation in place, either taking the 16-week Going VC course or the Newton Venture Program’s Foundations online course (hey, it’s free) could be great next steps.
With that learning completed, Ellen could start following a few Podcasts, like 20VC or EU.VC, or book up a few books like the Business of Venture Capital and Raise: the female founder’s guide to securing investments.
Next, looking to expand her network in the industry, Ellen could apply for Dream VC (if she was based in Africa) or Included.VC (if she was located in Europe). Both competitive programs would offer excellent learning opportunities, network and community to build her foundation to join the industry full-time.
Stage 2: Getting the idea for the first fund
As months pass, and Ellen realizes she has an appetite for all things VC, she may realize that her career path is not joining an established VC firm, like Passion Capital, Atomico or 500; but rather launch her own early-stage, first-time VC fund.
At this stage, with things starting to get serious, she might choose to sign up for VC Lab, and sprint through their 14-week online program. This could keep her busy, with sessions and deliverables easily taking up 25+ hours per week. But, with the time invested, she would also be fast-tracking her fund’s investment thesis, strategy, portfolio construction, deal access and – notably – her LP mapping. Realizing, building a solo GP fund is hard, she could bring in 1-2 more like-minded investment partners, and set the foundation for their first fund C.AI Fund I, managed by the firm, Climate AI Capital Partners (not yet legally set up, though).
Alongside her two trusted partners, Ellen might choose to apply for Thema (UK) or Allocator One (Austria), both strong, early backers to first-time fund managers and excellent choices for an early-stage, smaller funds.
Stage 3: Launching Fund I
Six months into the journey, and getting closer to the coveted first-close, Ellen and her team might realize that the International Climate Finance Accelerator in Luxembourg might be an excellent choice to secure some working capital, access the LP ecosystem and get more strategic support for their climate x AI thesis.
Alternately, with more of an emerging market focus, maybe looking to deploy 50% of the fund with a gender-lens into SE Asia or the Middle East, Ellen and her team might choose to apply to the 2X Ignite GP Sprint and get full access to the strategic advisors, learning platform, community, in-person training sessions, in-person LP meet ups, LP network and more.
Both options would be strong accelerators to help the fund push towards first, second and final close. Maybe, along the way, Ellen may join 1-2 VC association trainings, like the BVCA’s Financial Modelling course or ESG course.
Stage 4: Launching Fund II
With a sub-$30M in the bag and partially deployed, the clock is now ticking on fund II. After all, those management fees only go so far with just one fund, right?
Recognizing that ‘what got us here will not get us there’, Ellen starts looking at support to access those institutional LPs. She lands on a few choices. First, she signs up for the Newton Venture Program’s flagship program, Fellowship, running over six months. This helps her build out her network and reflect more deeply on the market position and strategy of fund II. Next, if she’s aiming to stay in Europe, the Luxembourg-based Pitch Me First, six-month program will help the fund get ready for institutional LPs. Yet, looking more towards the US market, Coolwater Capital’s Build program is looking attractive to access more US-centric LP networks. Tough choice, though choice. But, with her eyes towards Europe, Ellens lands on Pitch Me First, choosing to save Coolwater for the work on fund III, in about two more years (fast fundraising cycles).
With the support of her new-found network and accelerator program, Ellen and her team breezes into a successful over-subscribed closing of fund II, now with $80M AUM.
On her first vacation in two years, in Rome, Ellen spends her evenings sipping red wine, reading up on the Exit Path book and reviewing her notes from the recent BVCA training on how to deliver successful exits.
Stage 5: Launching Fund III
Time flies when managing VC funds, and the team is maxed out deploying in line with the stated strategy and helping portfolio on advancing climate technologies and climate impact. Never mind, dealing with a shifting regulatory landscape, building out FOAK financing skills, hiring strategic CFOs in the portfolio and closing follow-on deals with Seres B-D funds.
Three years after the successful closing of fund II, and a respectable 2,1X DPI in fund I and 1,8X MOIC in fund II, fund III is knocking. This time, there is an urgent need to start meeting US-based LPs and generally expand both professional networks and trusted co-investors. It is time to take a step up, and apply to the Kauffman Fellows Program…..
What is Your Learning Path?
While, over the past five years, the available education and acceleration programs have exploded, much work remains to build out a better, more equitable and balanced VC industry globally.
We hope that a continued, professional development of new education programs, new fellowships and new accelerators both can and will continue to drive the industry forward.
We hope this article can help aspiring, emerging and established managers choose their own learning journeys, over time leading to better networks, better managers and ultimately better outcome for founders, GPs LP and the ecosystems overall.
Are you looking to develop a VC education or acceleration program?
Talk to us at hello@strategytools.io
Want to read more of our recent research?
Pre-register for the upcoming Scaling VC ecosystems report and watch out for our upcoming blog post Building a GP Accelerator.
