At the beginning of the year, 2012 was deemed "groundbreaking" for Northeastern University's IDEA. The student-run venture fund had granted more than $121,000 to 14 companies and "graduated" another seven to the "launched" stage, where they evolved into self-sustaining startups that had either entered strategic partnerships or raised a round of outside financing.
Over the last 12 months, however, that momentum has continued to grow. IDEA's portfolio now boasts 150 companies and is just beginning to gain speed. In November, at the Northeastern Entrepreneurship Expo, Chris Wolfel, the fund's former CEO — the one who called 2012 "groundbreaking" — acknowledged how far along the program has come in just a few short months.
"I'm amazed by how many new companies are here since I graduated in May, and how far along they've come," Wolfel noted at the time.
The event, more widely known as NEXPO, grew from featuring 10 ventures in the University's Curry Student Center Ballroom in the spring of 2011 to packing roughly 40 into one of the school's larger athletic facilities.
And that's all been able to happen thanks to the University's attempts to create a more symbiotic relationship between what's being taught in the classroom to what's being offered outside of it. Northeastern's Center for Entrepreneurship Education has been making strides in educating students and then connecting them with the Northeastern Entrepreneurs Club and IDEA, where they can gain the necessary inspiration to then create self-sustaining, successful startups.
To help bring early-stage companies to that self-sustaining phase, IDEA provides Gap Funding, which commits up to $10,000 in capital to qualified ventures. In 2013, several startups were awarded funding to reach the next level — 14 of which we spotlighted below.
As Frank Spital, Northeastern’s entrepreneurship and innovation group coordinator, proudly praised earlier this year, “Most universities do business plan competitions, we do businesses. We start stuff.”
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