EP 37: BUILDING THE LARGEST FUND FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH LAURA RIPPY
Laura Rippy, Managing Partner and Board Member at Alumni Ventures. She runs the Women's Fund, the Harvard-focused fund (The Yard Ventures), and the Dartmouth-focused fund (Green D Ventures) which she grew to be the largest fund at Alumni Ventures.
Alumni Ventures is America's Largest Venture Firm for Individuals with more than 10,000 individual accredited investors investing in their funds and is considered by PitchBook to be the #1 Most Active US Venture Firm and #3 Globally with over $1.25B+ raised & more than 1,300 portfolio companies since 2014.
Prior to Almni Ventures Laura was a three-time CEO, Board Member, and executive in many tech startups in Boston, Seattle, and DFW. She has previous experience at Microsoft across enterprise software and founding startup teams over seven years. Laura did strategy consulting in Germany during the economic unification of West and East Germany. Laura Rippy holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB in Government from Dartmouth College.
Alumni Ventures is America's largest venture firm
for individual investors.
Alumni Ventures is recognized as a “Top 20 Venture Firm” by CB Insights (’24) and as the “#1 Most Active Venture Firm in the US” by Pitchbook (’22 & ’23). They believe in the power of networks, and their network is uniquely broad and deep. The 750k+ members of their community are their source of capital, deal flow, and value-add services to portfolio companies.
The Dartmouth Fund is a community of Dartmouth alumni investors, entrepreneurs, and friends. Now on it’s 12th fund, they raise and invests a new fund every year. Notable investments: Upstart, Gatik, Kindbody.
The Harvard Fund is a community of Harvard alums investors, entrepreneurs, and friends. Currently in its 9th fund. Notable investments: Hydrow, SimpliSafe, and Knix.
The Women’s Fund invests in women entrepreneurial leaders bringing their talents and perspective to promising markets — from femtech to software, pharma, biotech, CPGs, and more. ~15-20 venture investments made over ~12-18 months — diversified by stage, sector, geography, lead investor. Reserves ~20% to pursue follow-on opportunities in the most promising portfolio investments. Investments sourced by a team of dedicated investing professionals, our network of handpicked Scouts, AV’s 750k+ supporters, and other AV funds.
