For some young entrepreneurs, it pays to drop out of school.
The Thiel Foundation, an organization founded by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, has named its latest Thiel Fellows class, a group of young tech founders who are encouraged to start companies rather than attend college.
The two-year program provides techies with $100,000 in funding and access to the Thiel Foundation’s network of founders and investors. The catch: You have to drop out of school.
Among the 22 entrepreneurs in the 2019 Thiel Fellows class is Chicago founder Rohit Kalyanpur, CEO of Optivolt Labs. Optivolt is developing a solar platform that powers devices such as drones, scooters and robotics.
Kalyanpur, one of Chicago Inno's 2018 25 Under 25, dropped out of the University of Illinois' electrical and computer engineering program. Optivolt also participated in Techstars Chicago's accelerator program last year.
Kalyanpur isn't the only local founder who has dropped out of school and landed a Thiel fellowship. Joey Krug, a Knoxville, Ill.-native, was a 2016 Thiel Fellow for his startup Augur, a blockchain-built prediction market platform. Chicagoan Jeremy Cai, founder of software company OnboardIQ, was a 2015 Thiel Fellow.
Founded in 2011, the Thiel Fellowship says companies that have gone through the program are collectively worth more than $8.2 billion.
